GLIMPSE 

OF 

THEHEAJIT 
OF  CHINA 


EDWARD  C,  PERKINS 


LIBRARY   OF   THE   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

PRINCETON,    N.  J. 
PRESENTED  BY 

Mrs.  Donald  Sinclair 

DS  710   .P47  1911 
Perkins,  Edward  Carter. 
A  glimpse  of  the  heart  of 
China 


Digitized  by 

the  Internet  Archive 

in  2015 

https://archive.org/cletails/glimpseofheartofOOperk_0 


A  GLIMPSE  OF  THE 
HEART  OF  CHINA 


a' GLIMPSE  OF  THE 


HEART  OF  CHINA 

BY 

EDWARD  C.  PERKINS,  M.D. 


ILL U  ST  RA TED 


New  York      Chicago  Toronto 

Fleming  H.  Revell  Company 

London     and  Edinburgh 


Copyright,  1911,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  123  North  Wabash  Ave. 
Toronto:  25  Richmond  Street,  W. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:    100    Princes  Street 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING 

Mary  Stone,  M.D.        .      .      .  Frontispiece 

'  With  its  two  wings  reaching  out  toward  the  gate  "  .  rg 

'  Quite  a  number  of  the  patients  came  at  the  sum- 
mons of  the  bell  "  45 

'  Where  medicines  were  given  out  over  a  counter  "  .  46 

'One  could  see  the  patients  brighten  as  the  doctor 

went  her  rounds  "  62 

'  Clever  in  handing  instruments  and  foreseeing  needs  "  64 

'  And  many  skillfully-performed  operations  "    .  .69 

'  That  devoted  band  of  Christians  "  .      .       ;  .84 

A  door  of  hope  87 


This  little  sketch  began  as  a  letter,  but 
grew  very  naturally  into  something  of  a 
more  general  character  because  of  its  sub- 
ject matter.  It  is  hoped  that  it  will  be  of 
interest  not  alone  because  of  the  capable, 
devoted  and  self-sacrificing  woman  of 
whom  it  gives  an  inadequate  picture,  but 
also  because  it  would  pass  on  a  vision  of 
the  love  of  the  Master. 

E.  C.  P. 

St.  Luke's  Hospital, 
New  York  City,  April  4,  1911. 


I  wish  to  acknowledge  my  indebtedness  to  the  Christian 
Herald,  through  whose  courtesy  I  am  using  the  picture  of 
Dr.  Stone  that  serves  as  the  frontispiece. 


TO 

THE  MEMBERS  OF  THE  W.  F.  M.  S. 

are  so  faithfully  holding  up  the  hands  of  their  sisters 
abroad  in  their  work  for  His  Kingdom,  this 
little  book  is  respectfully  inscribed. 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart 
of  China 


HE  smiling  host  of  the  Wagons 


Lits  Terminal  Hotel  of  Hankow 


bowed  us  out  into  the  darkness 
outside,  as  we  started  in  several  rick- 
shaws, one  or  two  of  them  carrying  hand 
baggage,  for  the  Bund.  On  the  way  we 
overtook  and  passed  the  coolies  who  were 
carrying  our  trunks — carrying  them  in  the 
typical  Chinese  fashion,  slung  from  a  pole; 
and  also,  quite  according  to  the  custom  of 
the  place,  to  the  monotonous  and  rather 
painful  groaning,  or  grunting,  such  as  one 
hears  continually  during  the  daytime — the 
first  groan  being  given  by  the  man  in  front, 
and  that  being  echoed  by  the  man  behind, 
usually  with  some  difference  in  key  be- 
tween the  groans.  There  is  truly  nothing 
that  is  ludicrous,  in  spite  of  the  novelty  of 
this  accompaniment  to  work,  and  one's  re- 


ft 


lo  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 

membrances  of  Hankow  are  colored  in 
large  part  by  this  rather  doleful  melody  of 
toil.  Elsewhere  we  heard  labor  accom- 
panied by  truly  a  monotonous  but  a  more 
cheerful  variety  of  sound,  more  akin  to 
song. 

The  boat  was  drawn  up  beside  the  wall 
which  bounds  the  Bund  and  was  the  scene 
of  much  activity.  There  were  but  two 
foreign  passengers  in  the  first  class,  my 
mother  and  I,  but  there  were  crowds  of 
travellers  who  were  travelling  after  Chi- 
nese fashion,  which  meant  being  much 
more  crowded,  and  I  think,  for  the  most 
part,  providing  their  own  food.  One  is 
struck  in  Chinese  travel,  both  on  train 
and  boat,  not  so  much  by  the  terrible 
crowding  of  the  native  passengers  as  by 
the  apparent  courtesy,  or  at  least  resigna- 
tion, with  which  they  submit  to  it.  So  far 
as  we  saw,  there  seemed  to  be  a  toleration 
which  would  scarcely  be  shown  by  the 
European  or  American  public  for  any 
length  of  time. 

It  seemed  a  little  startling  to  be  leav- 
ing for  a  voyage  down  the  Yang  Tze  at 


'A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  ii 

9  P.M.,  but  it  was  somewhat  in  keeping 
with  the  departure  of  other  means  of  con- 
veyance in  China,  which,  however,  are 
more  apt  to  leave  at  some  early  hour  in 
the  morning. 

The  starlight  was  beautiful,  and  under 
it  one  could  distinguish  the  great  broad 
sweep  of  the  Yang  Tze  reflecting  the 
lights  of  some  boats  anchored  in  the 
stream,  and  later  the  lights  of  Hankow  as 
we  swung  slowly  out  into  the  current  and 
turned  toward  the  East. 

We  understood  later  why  the  start  was 
made  late  in  the  evening,  when  the  bright 
morning  sunlight  showed  us  the  city  of 
Kiukiang,  with  its  Bund  and  its  landing 
hulks,  some  of  which  are  far  out  in  the 
stream,  and  at  which  the  vessels  plying 
the  Yang  Tze  stop  to  receive  and  dis- 
charge their  passengers  and  cargo. 

The  cause  of  our  going  to  Kiukiang 
was  a  long-anticipated  visit  to  Dr.  Mary 
Stone,  known  to  a  great  many  people  in 
the  United  States  both  personally  and 
through  one  or  two  accounts  of  her  life 
and  work  which  have  appeared  in  print. 


12  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 


'Dr.  Stone,  for  all  her  youthful  ap- 
pearance, has  had  considerable  experi- 
ence in  all  ways,  though  the  home  life  from 
its  start  was  that  of  a  member  of  a  Chris- 
tian family,  her  father  having  been  the 
first  convert  of  the  Yang  Tze  Valley  and 
having  become  a  preacher  of  the  Gospel. 
On  this  account,  and  also  because  her 
mother  was  a  Christian,  the  parents  re- 
fused to  comply  with  the  usual  custom  of 
deforming  the  feet  of  their  daughters,  as 
was  the  habit  of  all  their  neighbors,  and 
so  the  "Little  Doctor"  was  the  first  girl  of 
Central  China  to  escape  those  months  of 
pain  as  a  child,  and  the  subsequent  life- 
long inconvenience.  She  was  taught  by 
her  parents  in  part,  and  also  in  the  mis- 
sionary schools,  coming  to  this  country  in 
1 890,  and  being  graduated  from  the  Medi- 
cal School  of  the  University  of  Michigan 
at  Ann  Arbor  in  1894,  leading  her  class. 
On  graduating,  she  returned  to  her  coun- 
try to  undertake  the  conduct  of  the  Dan- 
forth  Memorial  Hospital. 

Dr.  Stone  had  written  that  we  should 
telegraph  in  advance  in  order  that,  as  she 


'A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  13 

expressed  it,  we  might  be  "properly  met." 
There  was  no  one  on  the  landing  hulk,  but 
this  was  at  some  distance  from  the  shore 
and  we  thought  probably  some  one  would 
be  over  on  the  Bund  when  we  reached 
there,  so  we  took  a  sampan  which  carried 
us  and  our  mound  of  luggage,  and  were 
sculled  along  over  the  rippling  surface  of 
the  brown  river  which  looked  almost  at- 
tractive under  the  bright  sunlight  of  that 
October  morning.  We  reached  the  shore 
and  our  luggage  was  deposited  on  the 
Bund,  and  a  crowd  of  interested  Chinese 
began  to  collect,  but  no  familiar  face  ap- 
peared, nor  any  face  that  looked  as  if  its 
owner  recognized  in  us  the  possible  friends 
of  Dr.  Stone. 

The  gathering  crowd  appeared  to  be 
mostly  made  up  of  porters,  and  it  began  to 
close  in  around  us  in  a  circle  which  seemed 
to  be  respectful  though  inquisitive,  but  was 
a  trifle  disconcerting.  It  occurred  to  me 
just  before  we  reached  Kiukiang  that  I 
ought  to  have  been  armed  with  at  least 
some  approximation  of  Dr.  Stone's  name 
in  Chinese,  and  when  we  stood  there,  sur- 


14  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 

rounded  by  this  group  of  porters  to  whom 
we  could  not  speak,  and  realized  that  a 
search  for  a  friend  in  a  Chinese  city,  where 
not  even  the  name  was  known,  would  be 
a  matter  of  no  small  difficulty,  the  per- 
plexity seemed  quite  complete.  There 
could  not  be,  of  course,  many  doctors  in 
Kiukiang,  so  addressing  the  crowd  rather 
broadly  I  said  with  a  rising  inflection, 
"Dai  Fu,"  which  in  the  Northern  dialect 
means  doctor,  and  then  repeated  it  with 
an  addition,  "Stone  Dai  Fu,"  and  then 
tried  "Lady  Dai  Fu"  and  "Miss  Dai  Fu" 
in  the  hope  that  there  might  be  some  one 
at  least  who  understood  a  word  of  Eng- 
lish. 

A  look  of  great  interest  spread  through 
the  crowd,  mingled  with  perplexity,  and 
a  policeman  arrived  on  the  scene  and 
held  the  crowd  back  at  a  more  re- 
spectful distance  while  I  repeated  my 
somewhat  small  repertoire  to  his  no  small 
mystification.  It  certainly  was  a  situation 
that  needed  care  to  solve,  and  resembled 
the  classical  problem  of  the  fox,  the  goose 
and  the  bag  of  corn.    Of  course,  I  did 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  15 

not  wish  to  leave  my  mother  in  the  middle 
of  a  crowd  of  Chinese  in  a  perfectly 
strange  city,  nor  did  she  wish  to  go  off 
on  an  independent  tour  of  exploration.  It 
also  was  evident  that  it  would  be  unwise 
to  go  off  together  and  leave  our  baggage 
where  it  was,  still  more  foolish  would  it 
be  to  sit  on  our  baggage  and  wait  indefi- 
nitely while  the  crowd  increased,  and  yet 
more  impossible  was  it  for  us  to  carry  our 
luggage  and,  even  had  we  been  able, 
whither? 

I  then  saw  to  my  great  joy  the  word 
"Contractor"  on  a  building  nearby,  and 
went  over,  to  find  a  Chinese  standing  in  the 
doorway  to  whom  I  repeated  my  efforts 
about  the  "Dai  Fu,"  also  to  his  perplexity. 
It  might  be  stated  that  the  nearest  ap- 
proach to  the  word  "Dai  Fu"  in  the  Cen- 
tral Mandarin  is  "Daw  Fu,"  meaning  a 
cook.  No  wonder  the  crowd  had  been 
mystified.  Then  I  tried  the  word  "hospi- 
tal" and  "sick  people"  with  my  new 
acquaintance  in  the  doorway,  because 
he  said  he  knew  a  word  or  two  of 
English,  answering  my  rather  despairing 


i6  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 

inquiry,  and  finally  he  said  "Shii  Ee 
Sen,"  and  a  couple  of  the  porters, 
who  had  accompanied  me  on  my  lit- 
tle errand  to  the  contractor's  house, 
started  back  for  the  baggage,  and  the 
more  energetic  of  them  flung  himself  on 
all  fours  over  the  mound,  feeling  he  was 
sure  of  the  place  where  we  wanted  to  go, 
and  began  to  fight  the  other  porters  off 
and  distribute  the  luggage  piece  by  piece 
to  his  friends  or  relatives  in  the  crowd.  It 
approximated  a  free  fight,  but  the  energy 
and  the  persistence  of  this  man  won  the 
day  and,  with  one  exception,  he  gave  out 
the  luggage  pretty  much  as  he  pleased. 

We  then  started  up  a  street  which  we 
later  knew  was  in  the  Foreign  Conces- 
sion outside  the  City  Wall,  a  rather  strag- 
gling procession  of  eight  porters,  my 
mother  and  myself.  It  was  with  a  good 
many  misgivings  on  my  part  that  I  fol- 
lowed the  steps  of  our  porters,  not  feel- 
ing at  all  sure  that  they  knew  where  we 
wanted  to  go,  but  somewhere  we  were 
bound  certainly,  and  with  a  mixture  of 
alarm  and  interest  we  followed  on,  under 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  17 


the  arch  of  the  gate  leading  inside  the  city 
wall  and  then  through  such  crowded,  such 
narrow,  such  dirty  and  smelly  streets! 
The  head  of  the  procession  disappeared 
around  a  curve  at  once,  and  my  uneasi- 
ness increased  with  the  thought  that  the 
luggage  might  easily  disappear  down  side 
alleys  without  the  possibility  of  ever  trac- 
ing it. 

Such  a  strange  combination,  or  suc- 
cession of  smells  and  sights  as  that  was! 
Fish  were  being  washed,  food  was  being 
sold,  food  was  being  eaten  in  the  little 
open-fronted  restaurants,  burdens  of  all 
kinds  were  being  carried,  merchandise  of 
all  descriptions  was  being  displayed  for 
sale,  and  everywhere  was  the  color  blue 
as  the  predominant  shade  for  the  clothing 
of  the  crowds.  I  spent  my  time  in  going 
ahead  of  the  procession,  counting  the 
pieces  of  baggage,  and  then  coming  back  to 
encourage  my  mother  who  was  bringing 
up  the  rear.  No  conveyance  of  any  kind 
was  to  be  seen,  and  though  Kiukiang  has 
some  chairs  resembling  sedan  chairs  there 
were  none  in  evidence,  and  there  was  noth- 


1 8  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 

ing  to  do  but  to  pursue  the  hurrying  foot- 
steps of  our  porters,  and  indeed  they  did 
hurry  after  the  fashion  of  the  Chinese  bur- 
den bearers,  who  feel  quite  truly  that  the 
quicker  they  reach  their  journey's  end  the 
quicker  the  load  will  be  off  their  shoulders. 
We  made  two  halts,  one  of  them  in  a  most 
unprepossessing  place  where  a  pond  of 
dirty  water  suggested  malaria  and  typhoid 
fever  and  seemed  to  be  the  home,  or  the 
particular  environment,  of  a  large  and 
flourishing  family  of  pigs. 

My  mother  was  growing  weary.  We 
had  gone  for  a  mile  and  we  seemed  to  be 
getting  out  of  the  city  (at  least  out  of 
the  most  crowded  part),  and  my  uneasi- 
ness was  growing  considerably  with  the 
thought  that  we  were  possibly  getting 
farther  from  our  real  destination  and  also 
getting  to  a  place  where  no  welcome  Eng- 
lish sight  might  meet  one's  eye. 

Some  brief  moments  of  rest  and  we  re- 
sumed our  march  again,  and  turned  a  cor- 
ner leading  up  a  small  incline  through 
rather  an  unpromising  looking  street  or 
lane,  where  pigs  and  dogs  seemed  to  own 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  19 


a  considerable  part  of  the  thoroughfare, 
not  to  mention  some  rather  untidy  look- 
ing people;  but  over  the  top  of  some  stone 
walls  loomed  the  roofs  of  foreign  style 
buildings,  and  I  hastened  back  to  encour- 
age my  mother  for  the  last  effort  with  the 
report  that  we  were  nearly  there. 

It  was  with  a  feeling  of  joy  and  of 
great  relief  we  saw  the  front  end  of  the 
procession  turning  into  a  gate  in  a  wall 
bordering  the  lane,  and  we  ourselves  fol- 
lowed through  the  first  archway  and  then 
through  a  round  opening  In  the  second 
wall  at  the  far  side  of  a  kind  of  entrance 
vestibule,  to  find  ourselves  in  a  place  so 
different  that  it  was  almost  startling;  and 
perhaps  almost  as  much  as  the  change 
which  the  eye  saw  there  came,  too,  a 
change  in  one's  feeling,  a  restfulness,  a 
peacefulness,  which  we  were  not  alone  in 
feeling,  but  which  has  been  noticed  by 
others  who  have  crossed  the  threshold  into 
that  oasis  of  the  Heathen  Desert.  Di- 
rectly ahead  a  path  led  up  to  the  gray 
front  of  the  Hospital,  with  its  two  wings 
reaching  out  toward  the  gate,  and  on 


20  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 


either  side  of  the  path  was  a  row  of  bright 
colored  chrysanthemums,  for  China  as 
well  as  Japan  is  a  land  of  the  chrysanthe- 
mum. 

We  were  met  at  the  Gate  House  by  a 
very  sweet-looking  Chinese  woman,  who 
greeted  my  mother  with  little  inarticulate 
exclamations  of  distress,  and  we  were  es- 
corted up  to  Dr.  Stone's  house.  It  ap- 
peared that  Dr.  Stone  was  not  at  home — 
had  gone  down  to  Nanking  to  the  Annual 
Conference  a  day  or  two  before,  having 
started  before  the  coming  of  the  telegram 
which  told  of  our  proposed  arrival.  She 
had,  however,  conditionally  ordered  two 
chairs  sent  to  the  Bund,  but  we  had  failed 
to  make  connections  with  them,  and  the 
very  attractive  Chinese  lady  who  met  my 
mother  was  full  of  distress  that  she  should 
have  had  the  long  walk  up  from  the  boat 
landing.  She  had  a  way  of  escorting  my 
mother,  holding  her  with  her  right  hand 
under  my  mother's  left  elbow,  and  her  left 
hand  supporting  her  left  wrist  in  a  way 
which  I  fancy  is  a  customary  one  In  show- 
ing respect  to  Chinese  ladies  whose  bound 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  21 

feet  make  them  often  rather  unsteady.  I 
have  heard  of  one  Chinese  woman  who 
virtually  never  took  a  step  alone,  but  al- 
ways leaned  upon  her  maid,  and,  in  gen- 
eral, it  may  be  said  that  the  women  of 
greatest  privilege  have  the  smallest  feet 
and  are,  therefore,  the  most  in  need  of 
support. 

This  lady,  who  greeted  us,  was  Dr. 
Stone's  sister-in-law,  who  spoke  a  little 
English  and  understood  much  more,  but 
was  rather  timid  about  speaking  at  all  with 
the  feeling  possibly  that  our  ears  would  be 
offended  by  mistakes;  but,  with  her  Eng- 
lish, as  with  that  of  two  or  three  others 
whom  we  learned  to  know  at  Kiukiang, 
the  softness  of  intonation  and  the  sweet- 
ness of  voice  could  not  by  any  means  make 
errors  sound  at  all  objectionable.  On  the 
contrary,  I  must  confess  to  being  not  a 
little  attracted  by  the  odd  order  of  words 
and  the  interesting  changes  of  our  custom- 
ary use  of  our  language. 

The  path  to  the  doctor's  home  had  led 
us  around  the  East  Wing  of  the  Hospital, 
up  a  flight  of  steps,  along  a  walk  that  was 


22  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 

bordered  on  both  sides  by  a  lawn  across 
which,  at  a  little  distance,  began  the  flower 
garden  of  roses  and  chrysanthemums, 
quite  a  mass  of  blossoms,  although  the 
month  would  mean  anything  but  such  a 
display  with  us  in  America,  to  where  be- 
fore us  stood  the  gray  building,  the  pres- 
ent— and  a  memorial  present — to  the 
Compound,  the  home  of  Dr.  Stone  and 
Miss  Jennie  V.  Hughes. 

Before  we  reached  the  Compound  the 
man  who  had  successfully  corralled  our 
baggage  had  stopped  to  impress  me  with 
the  fact  that  he  was  "No.  i  Boy,"  which 
words  he  knew,  and  therefore  I  Inferred 
from  gestures  and  a  few  rather  Inarticu- 
late phrases,  that  I  was  by  no  means  to 
pay  all  the  coolies  alike,  but  to  turn  over 
the  funds  entirely  to  him  and  let  him  pay 
the  rest  with  the  "squeeze"  for  himself, 
according  to  the  ordinary  Chinese  usages. 
There  was  quite  a  little  doubt  In  my  mind 
as  to  how  much  the  porters  ought  to  re- 
ceive. I  was  perfectly  sure  that  they 
ought  not  to  be  given  all  they  asked,  and 
finally  the  amount  which  was  paid,  al- 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  23 

though  less  than  they  seemed  to  feel  was 
necessary,  made  them  go  away  in  a  state 
of  great  delight,  and  as  we  learned  after- 
ward they  received  many  times  more  than 
the  usual  few  cents,  the  customary  wage 
for  carrying  a  load  for  so  considerable  a 
distance. 

Such  an  atmosphere  of  welcome  as  the 
house  itself  seemed  to  give  !  Such  a  home- 
like place  as  it  was — all  of  it!  We  turned 
to  the  American  side  of  the  house  (there 
being  a  Chinese  side  to  the  left  of  the 
front  door),  and  came  into  a  delightfully 
comfortable  sitting  room  with  a  library 
seen  through  the  large  double  doorway, 
and  just  here  let  me  add  parenthetically 
that  the  thought  began  to  dawn  on  my  mind 
that  we  were  in  the  presence  of  the  "Mis- 
sionary luxury"  which  one  hears  about  in 
this  country.  If  it  is  a  confession,  let  me 
make  it,  that  before  the  return  of  our 
hostess  I  took  occasion  to  make  something 
of  a  mental  inventory  of  the  furniture  and 
ornaments,  in  order  to  be  sure  of  my  facts, 
and  as  I  think  one,  who  knew  Dr.  Stone 
better  than  I  did  then,  would  readily  im- 


24  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 


agine,  the  result  was  that  I  realized  how 
perfectly  fitting  all  the  appointments  of  the 
home  were — by  no  means  luxurious — in- 
teresting because  foreign  to  us,  but  not 
costly,  and  yet  all  arranged  and  placed 
with  such  a  fine  sense  of  the  artistic,  and 
the  convenient,  that  it  really  gave  the  im- 
pression of  a  beautiful  house.  Those  who 
come  to  know  the  many-sidedness  of  "The 
Little  Doctor"  will  realize  that  quite  over- 
shadowed as  it  is  by  more  important  and 
more  beautiful  characteristics,  there  is  a 
true  sense  of  the  artistic,  too,  in  her 
rounded  character. 

We  went  upstairs  to  our  rooms  shortly. 
One  could  not  help  being  delighted  with 
it  all.  My  mother's  room  looked  out  in 
one  direction  toward  a  venerable  pagoda 
which  was  bushy  with  green  growth,  al- 
most from  bottom  to  top,  there  being  a 
particular  mass  of  shrubbery  on  its  top 
roof. 

My  room  looked  out  over  the  rose  gar- 
den, across  the  Compound  Wall  on  the  far 
side  of  which  lived  an  assorted  family  of 
pigs,  and  a  little  shanty  which  looked 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  25 

hardly  nice  enough  for  their  home,  but 
which  in  reality  was  the  home  of  their 
owners.  I  recall  seeing  one  of  the  pig 
family,  one  of  the  largest,  disappearing 
into  the  house.  I  expected  to  see  his  im- 
mediate exit,  but  was  disappointed. 

Nearby  were  trees,  on  a  branch  of  one 
of  which  a  man  occasionally  brought  out  a 
bird  in  a  cage  early  in  the  morning  and 
stood  off  to  listen  to  it  sing  a  melodious, 
liquid,  forest-like  song,  some  sort  of 
thrush  one  might  think.  A  fondness  for 
birds  is  one  of  the  noticeable  traits  of  mas- 
culine China,  and  one  sees  many  of  the 
men  in  Peking  carrying  a  bird  cage  and  its 
occupant  as  a  man  in  England  or  America 
would  take  his  dog  as  a  companion.  Be- 
yond this  nearest  menage  were  some  low- 
lying  roofs,  and  farther  still  quite  a  sharp 
rise  of  ground  surmounted  by  what  I  took 
to  be  a  little  hilltop  shrine.  There  was  a 
constant  ascent  and  descent  to  and  from 
this  little  place,  and  it  seemed  to  me  that 
probably  these  were  worshipers.  It  proved, 
however,  that  it  was  a  kind  of  observa- 
tory, and  that  people  who  went  to  the  top 


26  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 

went  there  merely  for  the  view.  Quite  as- 
tonishing again  and  rather  revolutionary 
to  one's  ideas  of  the  very  matter-of-fact 
viewpoint  that  a  Chinese  has  of  the  world. 

The  following  day,  which  was  Sunday, 
there  was  a  perfect  crowd  on  the  hilltop 
and  some  surrounding  high  ground  all  day. 
I  watched  them  through  a  pair  of  field 
glasses,  but  could  see  no  sign  of  worship, 
and  fancied  that  it  must  be  rather  desul- 
tory. Just  beyond  this  little  observatory 
there  was,  though  not  as  high  as  it,  the 
gray  battlements  of  the  ancient  City  Wall 
and  over  the  top  and  much  farther  away 
one  saw  the  blue  hills  on  the  far  side  of 
the  Yang  Tze. 

The  bed,  placed  somewhat  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  room,  assigned  to  me,  gave  the 
impression  of  airiness  and  a  rather  sum- 
mery feeling,  which  was  heightened  by 
the  white  mosquito  netting.  This  latter, 
even  in  November,  was  most  important, 
and  I  must  confess  to  a  certain  feeling  of 
disquietude  at  seeing  specimens  of  the 
mosquito  family,  the  possible  donors  of  an 
attack  of  malaria,  resting  on  the  walls. 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  27 

In  another  direction  the  windows  looked 
across  the  pretty  lawn  to  the  hospital, 
which  was  quite  close  by,  and  on  open- 
ing the  shutters  at  night  I  always  saw  the 
subdued  light  in  the  hospital,  and  usually 
the  dim  form  of  one  of  the  nurses  going 
about  on  her  ministrations  to  the  sick,  and 
it  gave  one  the  sensation  of  pleasure  and 
gratitude  to  think  of  a  needed  work  like 
that  going  on  for  twenty-four  hours  a  day. 

Dr.  Stone's  sister-in-law  soon  withdrew, 
and  we  were  left  to  unpack  our  things  and 
to  take  possession,  which  was  a  pleasure, 
inasmuch  as  the  house  had  such  a  home- 
like atmosphere,  and  we  had  been  spend- 
ing so  many  days  in  cars  and  steamboats 
and  hotels. 

An  American  lady  of  prominence  who 
has  visited  widely  in  China  Is  responsible 
for  saying  that  Dr.  Stone's  house  is  the 
most  homelike  home  she  knows  in  that 
kingdom.  Somehow  the  thoughtfulness 
and  the  winsomeness  of  our  hostess 
seemed  to  anticipate  our  coming  and  be 
really  an  entity  in  the  home  almost  as  if 
we  had  an  unseen  hostess. 


28   A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 

Before  very  long  the  shy  figures  of  two 
rather  slight  Chinese  boys  appeared,  and 
in  one  of  them  I  recognized,  through  pho- 
tographs sent  to  America,  one  of  Dr. 
Stone's  practically  adopted  boys.  Mo  Lin 
Wu.  The  house  is  the  home  of  four  boys, 
aged  from  seven,  I  should  judge,  that  is, 
Wesley  Mei  to  Leslie,  the  oldest,  about 
thirteen. 

The  personnel  of  the  four  brothers  is 
interesting,  and  particularly  interesting  is 
the  fact  that  from  very  different  origin 
they  are  being  brought  up  in  a  most  har- 
monious manner,  quite  as  if  they  were 
really  brothers.  From  my  observation,  it 
seemed  to  me  that  there  was  less  differ- 
ence of  sentiment  among  them  than  is  usu- 
ally the  case  in  a  family  of  boys.  Luther 
Stone  is  the  doctor's  nephew,  the  son  of 
a  brother  who  died  a  number  of  years  ago, 
and  also  the  son  of  the  head  nurse  in  the 
hospital.  Something  there  is  about  him 
which  reflects  the  attractiveness  of  his 
mother.  Wesley  Mei  is  the  son  of  a  young 
widow,  Mrs.  Mei,  who  is  one  of  the  head 
teachers  at  the  Knowles  Bible  Training 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  29 

School.  This  school  is  at  present  sepa- 
rated from  the  hospital  by  a  considerable 
distance,  but  when  they  get  into  their  new 
quarters  it  will  be  directly  across  the 
street.  The  mother,  Mrs.  Mei,  has  also 
a  little  girl  who  lives  with  her.  She  is  so 
devoted  to  Christian  work  that  she  goes 
on  patiently  with  her  labors  in  Kiukiang 
for  $5  a  month,  despite  the  fact  that 
friends  and  neighbors  have  expostulated 
with  her  for  not  taking  positions  in  the 
Government  Schools.  She  has  had  offers 
which  would  mean  very  much  more 
money,  but  she  gives  these  up  to  keep  on 
with  her  distinctively  Christian  work;  and 
the  faith  which  believed  that  her  work 
would  be  rewarded  and  that  the  children 
would  be  cared  for  has  been  justified  from 
the  fact  that  one  person  is  supporting  the 
little  Wesley  now  and  another  stands  wait- 
ing to  do  so  if  necessary. 

Leslie,  the  oldest  of  the  four,  was  a 
famine  child,  and  came  under  Dr.  Stone's 
care  in  a  very  lamentable  condition,  such 
a  condition,  in  fact,  as  is  rarely  seen  in 
this  country,  except  by  those  who  see  the 


30  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 


cases  of  marasmus  which  usually  find  their 
way  to  the  hospitals.  He  is  now  a  sturdy 
boy  and  looks  the  most  rugged  of  the  four. 
Mo  Lin  Wu  is  related  more  distantly  than 
Luther  to  the  doctor.  He  is  the  most  en- 
ergetic of  the  four  and  originates  most  of 
the  plans  and  games.  The  doctor  has 
wished  their  spending  money  to  come  to 
them  in  a  way  that  would  teach  them 
something  about  work,  and  so  promised 
them  a  small  copper  coin  for  each  pail  of 
water  which  they  would  carry  for  the  rose 
garden.  It  appears  that  the  bright  idea 
started  in  the  head  of  Mo  Lin  to  enlist 
the  little  girls  of  the  girl's  school  in  this 
financial  enterprise,  and  they  received  one 
copper  coin  for  every  ten  pails  they  car- 
ried, which  left  a  handsome  balance  for 
this  young  contractor.  Dr.  Stone  discov- 
ered this  arrangement  and  the  matter 
wore  an  altered  complexion  after  that. 

About  one  o'clock  the  sound  of  some 
Chinese  gongs,  or  rather  bells,  told  us  that 
lunch  must  be  ready,  and  we  went  down  to 
find  the  dining-room  furnished  with  a  high 
table,  and  two  places  set,  and  in  one  cor- 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  31 


ner  of  the  room  a  small  table  with  four 
small  chairs  and  some  three  or  four  little 
bowls  in  the  middle,  while  a  bowl  and  two 
chopsticks  marked  the  places  of  the  four 
youngsters.  The  latter,  who  were  already 
seated,  were  waiting  in  respectful  silence, 
probably,  as  I  supposed,  for  some  one  to 
say  grace,  and  after  that  they  started  to 
eat  their  rice  and  some  other  food,  partly 
fish,  which  was  contained  In  the  central 
bowls.  At  Intervals,  one  or  the  other  rose 
from  his  seat  and  disappeared  through  the 
door  leading  to  the  back  hall,  which  we 
later  learned  was  on  the  road  toward  the 
kitchen  below,  where  the  small  bowls  of 
rice  were  refilled  and  brought  back  in  tri- 
umph to  be  flavored  with  the  fish  and 
sauce  In  the  other  bowls. 

We  could  not  talk  with  the  very 
thoughtful  and  efiicient  Chinese  waiter 
who  looked  a  model  of  politeness  and 
friendliness,  nor  could  we  talk  with  the 
boys,  for  It  was  not  for  several  days  that 
we  learned  how  well  they  understood  Eng- 
lish, and  my  mother  recalled  the  fairy 
story  of   the   traveller   who  wandered 


32  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 

through  a  forest  to  find  an  enchanted  cas- 
tle where  he  was  waited  on  by  invisible 
servants,  no  part  of  whom  might  be  seen 
except  their  hands.  It  seemed  almost  like 
a  house  of  hospitality  with  only  the  hands 
to  help.  The  dining-room  has  in  it  some 
interesting  china,  Kiukiang  being  the 
home  of  some  kinds  of  pottery  and  porce- 
lain, and  these  being  the  presents  of  some 
grateful  patients,  I  presume,  give  a  very 
pretty  effect  to  the  sunny  room. 

The  library,  which  adjoins  the  dining- 
room,  has  quite  a  number  of  English 
books,  and  not  the  least  of  the  collection 
are  a  number  of  shelves  of  up-to-date 
medical  books,  given  by  the  late  Dr.  Dan- 
forth,  of  Chicago,  added  to  from  time  to 
time  as  new  works  have  come  out.  To  me, 
that  was  a  source  of  great  delight,  and  I 
anticipated  an  unbroken  chance  to  study, 
as  it  did  not  seem  to  me  likely  that  there 
could  be  very  much  in  a  practical  way  to 
be  done  to  help  our  hostess  when  she 
should  return. 

Somewhere  along  the  middle  of  the  af- 
ternoon Dr.  Stone's  sister-in-law  knocked 


'A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  33 


at  my  door,  and,  after  some  difficulty,  I 
made  out  that  she  would  be  much  obliged 
if  I  would  go  over  to  the  hospital  to  see  a 
patient.  The  mixture  of  English,  with  its 
interesting  accent,  together  with  an  effort 
to  be  most  courteous,  had  the  result  of 
placing  the  words  in  a  singular  mosaic,  so 
that  I  really  was  not  sure  what  was 
wanted,  but  finally  realizing  that  I  was 
asked  to  the  hospital,  I  followed  with 
mingled  feelings,  including  very  promi- 
nently one  of  alarm  at  the  thought  of  see- 
ing a  patient  who  could  not  speak  English, 
and  who  might  have  something  very  disas- 
trous the  matter  with  him,  and,  along  with 
this,  was  a  sense  of  exhilaration  at  the 
thought  of  really  being  on  the  threshold 
of  something  like  medical  missionary 
work. 

We  walked  through  the  long  hall- 
way which  traverses  the  main  building  of 
the  hospital,  and  out  of  a  door  at  the  other 
end  into  a  small  side  court,  where  the 
building  stands  that  serves  as  their  isola- 
tion ward.  There  were  no  contagious 
cases  in  it  during  our  stay  at  Kiukiang, 


34  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 


and,  under  such  circumstances,  it  is  used 
for  some  of  the  students  of  the  William 
Nast  College,  inasmuch  as  men  could  not 
well  be  admitted  to  the  hospital  proper. 

I  followed  my  guide  into  a  room  and 
saw  a  young  fellow  lying  in  bed  with  his 
head  bandaged,  leaving  little  more  than 
the  eyes  exposed.  Of  course,  it  was  evi- 
dently a  surgical  case,  and  I  was  shown 
some  water  and  soap  and  a  towel  was 
brought  for  me  to  scrub  up.  My  thought 
ranged  around  vaguely  for  a  necessary 
antiseptic,  but  I  supposed  that  their  tech- 
nique did  not  feel  the  need  of  bichloride  of 
mercury,  and  so,  after  a  good  scrub  of 
soap  and  water,  I  started  to  examine  the 
patient.  My  dismay  was  complete  when 
a  moment  later  the  head  nurse,  Mrs. 
Stone,  arrived  with  a  basin  of  bichloride, 
and,  in  fact,  this  so  disconcerted  the  visit- 
ing physician  that  he  almost  forgot  all  the 
surgery  he  had  ever  heard  of,  and  was 
simply  covered  with  mortification. 

The  case  was  one  of  an  infection  of 
the  lower  maxilliary  region,  but  an  exami- 
nation both  there  and  inside  the  mouth 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  35 


showed  no  treatment  necessary  other  than 
the  incisions  and  iodoform  dressings  that 
had  already  been  in  place.  The  infection 
had  somewhat  invaded  the  left  eye,  and 
that  was  a  little  the  better  for  the  washing 
out  with  boracic  acid,  which  it  received. 
However,  the  case  was  doing  well,  and 
the  dressings  were  put  on  again,  with  the 
statement  that  things  seemed  to  be  going 
favorably.  But  the  visiting  physician  re- 
tired in  much  confusion,  and  confided  to 
his  sympathizing  relative  in  the  house  that 
all  chances  of  future  usefulness  in  the  hos- 
pital were  gone  for  good  and  all,  and  that 
an  impression  had,  without  doubt,  been 
left  that  he  had  never  seen  anything  in  the 
line  of  surgical  technique. 

Great  was  his  joy,  however,  later  in 
the  afternon  to  have  the  same  courteous 
and  somewhat  ambiguous  invitation  to  go 
to  the  hospital  again,  this  time  to  see  a 
little  child  about  10  days  along  in  tubercu- 
lous meningitis.  The  mother  was  there, 
such  an  anxious-looking  mother  as  she  was, 
too,  but,  of  course,  it  seemed  best  to  tell 
her  at  once  that  the  case  was  a  very  se- 


36  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 

vere  one,  and  in  the  light  of  the  probable 
diagnosis  was  also  to  be  a  fatal  one.  I 
advised  her,  through  the  interpretation  of 
the  head  nurse,  to  keep  the  child  in  the 
hospital  for  a  while,  however,  until  we 
could  be  more  certain,  feeling  the  added 
responsibility  of  its  being  somebody  else's 
hospital,  and  yet  wishing  her  not  to  feel 
that  the  child's  death  was  the  fault  of  the 
treatment  there,  because  the  place  is  a  wit- 
ness for  Christ. 

On  returning  to  the  house  I  found  my 
mother  receiving  a  call  from  two  very  at- 
tractive Chinese  ladies,  who  it  appeared 
were  the  two  heads  of  the  Knowles  Bible 
Training  School,  and  whose  names  were 
Mrs.  Mei  and  Mrs.  Lan.  They  under- 
stand English  quite  well,  and  speak  quite 
intelligibly,  too,  and  they  were  asking  my 
mother  to  speak  at  the  Sunday  School 
service  the  following  day,  a  privilege 
which  was  finally  delegated  to  me.  It 
should  have  been  mentioned  that  at  4:30 
the  bells  rang  downstairs  again,  and  we 
went  down  to  find  the  table  set  with  af- 
ternoon tea,  a  meal  in  which  the  small 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  37 

boys  habitually  did  not  share,  or,  after 
the  return  of  Dr.  Stone,  shared  in  a  rather 
desultory  manner  with  nibbles  of  cake  or 
cookies. 

In  the  home,  at  the  head  of  the  stairs, 
is  a  square  upper  hall,  and  a  desk  where 
two  people  may  sit,  one  on  either  side. 
This  desk  later  was  associated  in  my  mind 
with  visions  of  the  Little  Doctor  sitting 
writing  and  writing  after  midnight  to 
friends  in  America,  and  also  a  sort  of  a 
nightly  council  of  war  held  with  her  on 
matters  medical,  cases  visited  and  treated 
during  the  day,  which  the  rushing  hours 
of  the  working  time  prevented  from  being 
fully  talked  over  earlier,  and,  indeed,  that 
council  came  to  be  one  of  the  pleasantest 
features  of  the  day.  But  on  this  first  Sat- 
urday evening  it  was  there  that  my  mother 
and  I  drifted  quite  naturally  to  read  and 
write  with  a  lamp  standing  between. 

Sunday  dawned,  and  with  it  there  came 
a  wish  to  go  to  the  morning  service,  but 
the  question  was — where?  I  started  out 
to  find  some  church,  feeling  sure  that  there 
must  be  one  somewhere,  and,  by  good  for- 


38   A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 


tune,  met  Dr.  Stone's  sister-in-law,  who 
was  in  a  chair  with  two  chair  coolies  as 
porters,  going  to  a  maternity  case.  I  tried 
to  follow  some  people  whom  she  indicated 
as  on  their  way  to  the  church,  but  these, 
being  two  ladies  and  a  girl,  seemed  to  feel 
that  I  ought  to  walk  in  front,  which  I  was 
rather  loth  to  do,  because  I  didn't  know 
the  way.  However,  at  each  turn,  I  looked 
back  to  receive  the  direction  by  the  wave 
of  the  hand,  and  finally  reached  the 
church  which  it  appeared  was  largely  for 
the  Rulison  School  for  girls  and  the  Will- 
iam Nast  College  for  boys  and  young  men. 

Few  audiences  one  could  imagine  are 
so  inspiring  to  face  as  the  audience  of  that 
church  with  its  four  or  five  hundred  boys 
and  girls,  the  boys  and  young  men  being 
to  the  right  as  one  faces  the  church  and  the 
girls  to  the  left,  and  the  students  of  the 
Knowles  Bible  Training  School  mostly  in 
the  gallery  at  the  end  of  the  church.  The 
missionaries  were  almost  entirely  away  at 
conference  at  Nanking,  and  the  sermon  of 
the  morning  was  preached  by  one  of  the 
professors,  a  Mr.  Tsai,  who  is  a  devoted 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  39 

and  consecrated  Christian,  and  one  of 
the  native  teachers  having,  I  think  as  a 
specialty  the  subject  of  mathematics. 
Doubtless  he  cannot  confine  himself  to  that 
subject  as  the  exigencies  of  missionary 
work,  require  some  versatility.  Dr.  Isaac 
Headland,  on  being  asked  during  his  last 
visit  to  America,  what  chair  he  occupied 
in  the  Peking  University  replied,  "Chair! 
Why,  I  have  a  whole  bench." 

About  noon  on  Sunday  the  comparative 
calm  of  the  lane  outside  the  hospital 
grounds  was  sharply  broken  by  the  sound 
of  an  approaching  storm  of  firecrackers. 
We  listened  for  some  moments  in  surprise 
and  doubt,  and  then  concluded  that  possi- 
bly the  Little  Doctor  was  returning  home. 
She  has  been  escorted  back  to  the  hospital 
in  this  way,  so  that  we  felt  quite  sure  that 
her  arrival  was  being  announced,  but 
when  we  reached  the  gate  house  and  en- 
tered the  atmosphere  heavy  with  smoke 
and  an  odor  reminding  one  of  our  own  In- 
dependence Day  we  learned  that  it  was 
one  of  the  nurses  who  was  returning  from 
a  maternity  case.    It  appeared  that  a  lit- 


40  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 

tie  boy  had  arrived  in  the  family  and  that 
the  friends  and  relatives  were  so  pleased 
that  they  had  escorted  the  nurse  all  the 
way  home  in  order  to  show  their  apprecia- 
tion. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  had  the  arrival 
in  the  family  been  a  daughter  no  such 
demonstration  would  have  marked  her  ad- 
vent. We,  of  the  Western  World,  are 
more  or  less  perplexed  at  the  very  great 
contrast  of  feeling  which  there  is  in  the 
minds  of  parents  between  their  boys  and 
their  girls,  and  the  many  instances,  which 
seem  so  terrible  in  our  sight,  of  the  doing 
away  with  the  little  girl  babies  by  expos- 
ing them  in  the  road  or  throwing  them  into 
some   pond,  which   is  constantly  done. 

The  matter  of  such  a  contrast  is  not 
so  hard  to  grasp,  however,  when  one 
of  the  fundamental  beliefs  of  the  Chinese 
is  understood.  This  may  be  styled  a  re- 
ligious belief,  inasmuch  as  it  takes  hold 
of  the  world  of  the  unseen,  and  is  con- 
nected with  their  worship. 

Their  thought  is  that  they  who  pass  on 
into  the  spirit  world  are  fed  and  clothed 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  41 


by  donations  from  this.  In  other  words, 
that  the  unseen  is  dependent  upon  the  seen 
rather  than  vice  versa.  So  every  one  who 
goes  out  into  that  unknown  country  be- 
lieves that  he  must  receive  offerings  of 
food  and  offerings  of  clothes  from  people 
who  either  live  or  shall  live.  The  only 
one  rightfully  to  present  these  offerings  as 
the  priest  of  the  family  is  one  of  the  male 
decendants,  and  those  who  leave  no  male 
decendants  behind  can  expect  to  be  noth- 
ing but  mendicants  forever  and  ever  in 
the  spirit  world — a  desolate  outlook  in- 
deed— and  one  can  scarcely  be  surprised 
that  with  this  belief  firmly  in  mind  the 
wish  of  all  hearts  is  to  be  represented  by 
a  son  or  as  many  sons  as  possible.  It  is 
further  true  that  the  girls  will  very  literally 
belong  to  another  family  upon  their  mar- 
riage. 

One  sees  almost  constantly  the  stores 
where  articles  are  sold  for  the  benefit  of 
those  who  are  supplying  the  needs  of  their 
relatives  in  the  land  of  shades;  and  in  these 
shops  the  long  strings  of  small  hollow 
pasteboard  boxes  covered  with  gold  and 


42  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 

silver  paper  hang  from  the  ceiling  in  rows 
quite  bewildering  to  the  uninitiated,  and 
one  may  see  at  times  some  man  travelling 
homeward  with  quite  an  armful  of  these 
pasteboard  boxes  and  paper  money  and 
clothing  which  he  purposes  to  burn.  The 
clothes  which  are  thus  introduced  into  the 
world  of  the  unseen  are  pieces  of  paper 
with  a  printed  pattern  on  them  which, 
when  burnt,  are  believed  to  turn  into  beau- 
tiful and  attractive  brocades  in  the  other 
world.  In  the  case  of  royalty,  and  doubt- 
less with  people  of  rank,  the  offerings  are 
of  real  silk  and  other  articles;  the  funeral 
of  the  late  Empress  Dowager  having  been 
the  occasion  of  the  burning  of  a  vast 
quantity  of  valuable  silks,  etc.  But  by  far 
the  great  proportion  of  these  offerings 
which  are  made  are  merely  an  imitation  of 
what  the  presents  are  supposed  to  become 
later. 

The  offerings  of  food  are  also  of  two 
kinds — there  may  be  the  presentation  at 
the  graves  or  before  the  ancestral  tablets 
of  real  articles  of  diet,  or  there  may  be 
merely  imitation  ducks  or  pigs  which  are 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  43 


rented  for  the  occasion  or  left  for  some 
hours  at  the  grave.  The  offering  of  the 
real  food  is,  I  believe,  much  more  common 
than  the  burning  of  real  clothing,  inasmuch 
as  the  shades  of  the  departed  are  supposed 
to  only  take  some  sort  of  spiritual  nourish- 
ment from  the  food  which  does  not  In  the 
least  prevent  its  value  to  the  family  later 
on. 

And  so  it  comes  about  that  the  girl  ba- 
bies early  begin  to  realize  that  their  posi- 
tion is  not  at  all  on  the  same  level  as  that 
of  their  brothers. 

Sunday  school  came  early  in  the  after- 
noon, and  the  evening  service  somewhere 
along  7  o'clock,  there  being  a  service 
down  in  the  Foreign  Concession  at  6 
o'clock,  to  which  I  went  with  two  or  three 
of  the  missionaries  who  were  not  in  Nan- 
king. The  sermon  there  was  preached  by 
a  man  who  belongs  to  the  China  Inland 
Mission,  and  whose  Income  Is  something 
like  200,000  pounds  a  year,  and  yet  his 
own  life  is  on  so  simple  and  frugal  a  plan 
that  he  makes  his  journeys  In  the  uncer- 
tain weather,  hot  and  cold,  of  China,  on 


44  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 


foot  from  place  to  place  so  as  to  help  set 
a  standard  and  help  maintain  a  simplicity 
of  life  for  the  native  preachers. 

Evening  came  again,  after  a  day  which 
seemed  much  shorter  than  the  previous 
one,  although  by  no  means  devoid  of  inci- 
dent and  blessing,  and  again  my  mother 
and  I  sat  in  the  upper  hall  at  the  two-sided 
desk.  It  must  have  been  lo  o'clock,  and 
the  house  was  very  quiet,  the  brothers 
having  crept  away  to  bed,  when  all  at 
once  there  was  a  scurry  of  feet  on  the 
stairs  and,  smiling  joyfully,  our  hostess  ar- 
rived. She  had  taken  the  first  boat  back 
from  Nanking  on  the  receipt  of  a  telegram 
telling  of  our  arrival.  Such  a  pleasant, 
such  a  delightful,  meeting  as  that  was. 
We  talked  and  we  laughed  and  we  ex- 
changed experiences  at  once,  and  all  things 
were  much  to  her  amusement,  and  so  the 
living  in  almost  a  stranger's  home  in  a 
more  strange  land  came  to  an  end,  and 
we  felt  the  actual  presence  of  the  most 
thoughtful,  the  most  gracious,  hostess. 

The  following  morning  the  bells  rang 
again  for  breakfast,  and  we  went  down  to 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  45 


feel  the  house  under  command  of  its  mis- 
tress again,  and  the  breakfast  began  with 
John  Wesley's  grace: 

"Be  present  at  our  table,  Lord, 
Be  here  and  everywhere  adored. 
These  mercies  bless,  and  grant  that  we, 
May  feast  in  Paradise  with  Thee. 

Amen." 

in  which  the  small  boys  at  the  little  side 
table  joined.  The  hostess  of  the  home 
speaks  beautiful  English,  idiomatic  and 
correct. 

After  breakfast  we  went  over  to  the 
hospital  and  attended  the  morning  pray- 
ers, which  service  was  announced  by  the 
somewhat  penetrating  sounds  of  a  gong 
which  hangs  in  the  doorway  of  the  room 
that  serves  as  chapel  and  as  the  dispen- 
sary waiting  room.  Quite  a  number  of 
the  patients  come  at  the  summons  of  the 
bell,  and  the  front  bench  was  occupied  by 
a  row  of  very  bright  appearing  and  very 
neat  looking  nurses,  dressed  in  blue. 

It  was  an  interesting  sight,  the  evi- 
dences of  sickness  in  the  way  of  bandages 
and  expression  were  plainly  to  be  seen; 


46  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 

but  the  Bible  and  the  singing  of  the  hymns, 
the  organ  being  played  by  the  "Little  Doc- 
tor," and  the  prayer,  and  something  of  an 
address,  were  all  attentively  listened  to 
and  joined  in,  and  the  whole  impression 
was  one  of  uplift.  Some  of  the  dispensary 
patients  had  already  arrived,  and  after 
prayers  on  that  morning,  as  on  others,  one 
could  see  the  "Little  Doctor,"  with  her 
rapid  diagnosis  and  directions  for  treat- 
ment, with  the  writing  of  prescriptions, 
working  busily  in  the  treatment  room, 
from  which  the  patients  emerged  to  go  di- 
rectly across  the  hall  to  the  drug  room, 
where  medicines  were  given  out  over  a 
counter. 

Dr.  Stone's  work  is  so  arduous  in  just 
taking  care  of  the  women  and  children  that 
it  is  impossible  to  think  of  caring  for 
men,  with  the  exception  of  an  occasional 
student  from  the  college,  and  yet  they 
come,  and,  in  cases  that  can  be  treated,  are 
not  turned  away.  That  morning  a  man 
arrived  who  had  a  double  pterygium.  We 
had  a  look  at  him  out  on  the  hospital 
porch,  and  the  "Little  Doctor"  turned  to 


'A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  47 


me  in  a  quick  way  she  has,  and  asked, 
"Will  you  do  it?"  This  was  like  lightning 
out  of  a  clear  sky,  and  the  visiting  physi- 
cian, with  a  few  pages  of  text  books,  but 
little  experience  behind  him,  felt  almost 
weak  in  the  knees,  as  he  replied  that  he 
would  if  the  doctor  in  charge  would  be 
present  at  the  operation.  The  man  was 
told  that  he  was  to  be  "operated,"  and  he 
showed  his  joy  and  gratitude  in  no  uncer- 
tain gestures  and  expressions,  and  the  vis- 
iting physician  felt  more  like  a  murderer 
in  disguise  than  anything  else,  and  read  up 
with  some  trepidation  and  with  great  in- 
tensity two  operations  for  removing  ptery- 
gia as  set  forth  in  a  surgery  in  Dr.  Stone's 
library,  and,  incidentally  be  It  said,  found 
it  difficult  to  sleep  during  the  night  which 
intervened  between  the  promise  and  the 
operation.  The  man  was  told  to  wait  at 
the  gate  house,  and  subsequent  to  the  op- 
eration was  lodged  and  cared  for  there, 
evidently  much  to  his  satisfaction,  and 
there  he  made  a  good  recovery.  Dr.  Stone 
having  assisted  at  the  operation. 

The  atmosphere  of  the  whole  Com- 


48  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 


pound,  from  the  Gate  House  to  the  In- 
ner Shrine  (which  we  would  suggest  as 
the  "Little  Doctor's"  own  heart)  is  a 
place  of  consecration,  and  every  part  of  it 
provides  its  missions  of  helpfulness.  In 
the  basement  of  the  home  was  a  little 
schoolroom  with  twelve  small  desks  and  a 
teacher's  platform  and  desk,  and  in  this 
the  four  brothers  and  some  six  or 
eight  other  boys  who  live  in  the  Com- 
pound, and  whose  parents  are  em- 
ployed in  one  way  or  another  in  the 
hospital  work,  go  to  school.  It  hap- 
pened that  the  teacher  was  sick  at  the 
date  of  our  visit  and  the  scholars,  al- 
though having  good  intentions  and  stay- 
ing in  the  schoolroom  part  of  the  time, 
quite  teacherless,  trying  to  keep  busy  were 
really  having  a  prolonged  holiday,  and  at 
most  hours  of  the  day  might  be  seen  play- 
ing about  the  garden  or  on  the  southeast 
porch  of  the  hospital. 

Farther  to  the  rear  in  another  part  of 
the  basement  in  a  storerom  is  the  play 
place  of  the  four  brothers,  and  each  has 
there  a  little  impromptu  house  made  out 


'A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  49 


of  pieces  of  wood  and  boards,  picked  up 
who  knows  where.  These  little  houses  are 
the  home  of  much  joy  and  delight  and  the 
resource  of  rainy  days.  Each  one  of  the 
brothers  has  his  own  little  house  in  which 
are  scraps  of  pictures  pinned  up,  and 
chipped  cups  and  saucers,  etc.,  etc.,  a  med- 
ley of  small  treasures  and  curiosities  with 
the  possibility  of  a  large  element  of  the 
make  believe.  Some  one  has  recently  writ- 
ten about  the  modern  toys  for  children,  the 
mechanical  toys  that  are  beyond  the  under- 
standing of  their  owners,  comparing  these 
with  the  coach  made  out  of  two  chairs,  or 
the  train  made  of  blocks  where  the  proud 
proprietor  is  the  owner  and  engineer,  the 
driver  and  the  fireman,  the  conductor  and 
the  passenger  and  motive  force  all  in  one, 
with  the  most  delightful  range  of  fancy 
and  freedom  of  thought;  whereas  the  me- 
chanical toy  leaves  him  but  a  little  child 
in  the  midst  of  the  hearth  rug.  Certainly, 
these  Chinese  boys  each  have  a  most  ideal 
playhouse  and  many  an  hour  is  spent 
there. 

Speaking  of  schools  there  is  also  a  lit- 


50  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 

tie  girls'  day  school  near  the  Compound 
wall  which  had  upwards  of  30  scholars 
while  we  were  there.  I  counted  upon  one 
occasion  33.  The  walls  of  this  school  are 
hung  with  some  of  the  Berean  Sunday 
School  lesson  pictures  and  have  also  a 
blackboard  or  two.  The  teacher  is  a  very 
sweet-faced  Christian  woman  who  appar- 
ently has  not  much  difficulty  in  the  way  of 
discipline.  Beside  her  own  desk  on  the 
platform  there  stood  a  little  basket  some- 
thing like  a  small  clothes  basket  and  in  this 
her  little  baby  lay.  I  do  not  recall  having 
heard  the  child  cry.  It  is  probably  a  sort 
of  a  model  little  Chinese  baby,  and  appar- 
ently the  girls  are  not  like  the  scholars  at 
Mary's  School,  who  were  made  to  laugh 
and  play. 

Without  looking  forward  to  the  future 
this  school  to-day  sends  out  many  lines  of 
influence.  Dr.  Stone  told  us  of  a  little 
scholar  of  the  school,  who  came  to  school 
for  a  number  of  days  in  tears.  Her  teacher 
asked  her  what  the  trouble  was,  and  had  as 
a  reply  that  her  father  had  beaten  her.  On 
being  asked  why  he  had  beaten  her  she 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  51 

replied  it  was  because  she  tried  to  tell  him 
about  Jesus,  and  so  the  teacher  told  her 
that  if  she  could  not  tell  about  Jesus  at 
least  she  could  "live  Jesus,"  and  that  the 
thing  for  her  to  do  was  to  be  so  bright 
around  the  house  and  so  ready  to  run  er- 
rands that  she  would  be  witnessing  all  the 
same.  It  was  only  two  or  three  weeks  be- 
fore her  father  said  to  her  one  day,  "Come 
here  little  girl.  What  has  happened?  You 
are  so  different  now  from  the  way  you  used 
to  be."  The  child  replied  timidly,  "But 
you  won't  let  me  tell  you."  "Yes,  I  will," 
he  answered.  "I  want  to  know  all  about 
it";  and  so  her  longed-for  opportunity 
came.  Who  shall  measure  the  influence  of 
the  children  who  go  from  the  day  school 
with  their  knowledge  of  a  living  God  into 
those  places  which,  with  apology,  we 
might  call  homes.  If  one  may  judge  at 
all  by  the  appointments  of  a  Chinese  home 
there  must  be  but  little  home  life. 

On  one  of  the  days  of  our  stay  in  Kiu- 
kiang  a  woman  came  to  the  hospital  to 
ask  that  some  one  might  go  down  and  see 
her  son,  who  was  ill.    Dr.  Stone  being 


52   A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 

very  busy  I  took  the  call  and  followed 
the  woman  down  the  roadway  outside  the 
hospital  Compound,  the  big  alley  which 
had  become  quite  familiar  by  this  time,  and 
turned  off  not  far  from  the  hospital,  going 
through  a  gate  and  then  through  a  series 
of  little  passages  or  hallways  or  courts,  or 
rooms,  round  corners  and  through  door- 
ways in  a  manner  that  was  perfectly  be- 
wildering, and  more  than  that,  gave  one 
the  impression  of  a  bad  dream,  for  one 
could  not  tell  whether  he  was  out  of  doors 
or  in  a  house.  We  passed  numberless 
people.  One  place  which  seemed  to  be  part 
of  a  court  had  in  it  some  men  who  were 
weaving,  and  in  another  place  there  were 
some  men  who  were  having  a  meal  to- 
gether, although  it  did  not  seem  to  be  any 
particular  meal  hour,  and  these  stared  at 
us  curiously,  and  at  last,  without  any  door- 
way, but  coming  under  a  covered  place,  we 
turned  a  corner,  and  the  sick  room,  if  it 
might  be  called  that,  was  before  us.  The 
bed  was  most  unsanitary,  being  set  into  the 
wall.  The  place  was  dark  at  best,  and  two 
curtains  which  hung  before  the  bed  made 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  53 

it  darker  yet  inside,  so  that  I  went  to  the 
wrong  end  of  the  bed  to  find  the  patient. 
On  turning  around  I  noticed  that  the  place 
where  we  were,  which  could  scarcely  be 
called  a  room,  was  full  of  an  interested 
but  respectful  crowd.  On  one  side  was  a 
window  largely  of  paper,  with  a  little 
square  of  glass  in  the  middle,  and  through 
this  one  could  see  the  faces  of  a  number 
of  people  besides  who  could  not  perhaps 
get  a  good  view  inside  the  room.  The  pa- 
tient was  very  ill.  It  proved  to  be  a  case 
of  advanced  pulmonary  tuberculosis,  and 
the  little  medicine  case  which  I  had 
brought  had  nothing  in  it  which  could  be 
of  service  there.  The  crowd  wanted  to  be 
useful  evidently,  and  there  being  many  of 
them  I  found  that  I  could  communicate 
with  the  sick  man  through  them.  I  turned 
to  them  and  breathed  deeply,  and  pointed 
to  the  patient  who  was  now  sitting  on  the 
edge  of  the  bed,  and  they  told  him  that  I 
wanted  him  to  breathe  deeply,  too,  for  the 
purposes  of  an  examination. 

During  the  examination  I  was  so  un- 
guarded as  to  sit  for  a  few  moments  on 


54  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 


the  edge  of  the  bed,  and  on  rising  was 
brushed  by  a  sympathizing  member  of  the 
crowd  in  order  to  remove  one  or  two  little 
visitors  who  had  fastened  themselves  on 
my  clothes,  and,  it  might  be  added  paren- 
thetically, that  the  visiting  physician  re- 
turned with  all  kinds  of  forebodings  and 
sensations  of  alarm  and  fear,  at  the 
thought  that  he  might  bring  into  that 
charming  home  some  souvenirs  of  the  oc- 
casion. The  crowd  were  informed  by 
signs  that  there  was  nothing  in  the  medi- 
cine case  for  the  man,  and  an  effort  made 
to  make  them  understand  that  the  mother 
of  the  sick  man  was  to  return  with  me  to 
the  hospital  in  order  to  get  some  medicine 
there. 

As  it  happened  I  was  equipped  with 
about  six  Chinese  words,  two  being  "tong 
ba,"  the  former  meaning  pain,  and  the  lat- 
ter being  spoken  with  a  rising  inflection, 
probably  a  kind  of  an  audible  question 
mark;  the  words  ^^kaischway,"  which 
meant  hot  water,  which  phrase  was  useful 
in  getting  some  water  for  washing  the 
thermometer,  and  the  name  of  Dr.  Stone 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  55 

in  Chinese.  This  last  phrase  was  employed 
in  a  general  way  to  signify  the  hospital 
and  that  a  return  thither  was  necessary, 
but  the  crowd  misunderstood  it  to  mean 
that  I  wanted  the  "Little  Doctor"  called 
in  on  consultation,  and  a  swift  messenger 
was  started  for  the  hospital,  but  called 
back  and  detained  while  the  efforts  to  in- 
duce the  mother  to  go  with  me  to  the 
Compound  were  resumed.  The  crowd  was 
confused,  the  mother  was  perplexed,  evi- 
dently my  sign  language  had  broken  down, 
and  my  very  vigorous  beckoning  to  the 
mother  seemed  to  convey  no  idea  at  all. 
No  wonder!  When  one  wishes  a  person 
to  follow  them  or  come  to  them  one  uses 
a  sign  which  with  us  means  a  farewell,  a 
shaking  of  the  hand  as  children  say 
"good-bye."  At  last,  however,  the  matter 
was  cleared  up,  and  the  woman  came  along 
to  the  hospital  to  receive  something  that 
would  make  the  last  days  of  her  son  less 
suffering. 

A  good  many  of  the  "Little  Doctor's" 
calls  for  help  outside  of  her  hospital  and 
dispensary  practice  are  in  maternity  cases. 


56  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 


She  told  of  a  man  who  came  one  dark, 
rainy  night  and  asked  her  to  go  across  the 
Yang  Tze  and  six  li  (two  miles)  into  the 
country  to  where  his  wife  lay  ill.  It  ap- 
peared that  the  case  had  been  in  need  of 
medical  aid  for  four  days,  and  surely  the 
horror  of  cases  like  this,  cases  that  are 
impossible  to  the  native  efforts,  should 
make  us  of  the  Occident  stop  and  think, 
and  remember  the  terrible  hours  of  pain 
and  the  hopelessness  and  helplessness  of 
the  situation  for  all  concerned.  The  man 
who  came  to  Dr.  Stone  went  down  on  his 
knees  in  Chinese  fashion,  and,  not  on  that 
account,  but  on  the  Lord's  account,  the 
"Little  Doctor"  said  that  she  would  go. 

She  took  one  of  her  nurses  with  her,  and 
the  two  chairs,  with  their  chair  coolies, 
started  on  their  long  trip.  One  should  not 
fancy  the  streets  of  Kiukiang  as  lighted 
by  electricity  or  street  lamps.  In  fact,  to 
find  one's  way  home  from  a  nearby  place 
without  a  lantern  would  be  almost  impos- 
sible, except  to  one  who  was  entirely  fa- 
miliar with  every  step  of  the  ground,  and 
the  little  lanterns  which  the  chairs  carry 


'A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  57 


throw  but  a  dim  light  into  the  surround- 
ing darkness,  and  one  should  not  fancy 
either  the  Yang  Tze  as  a  river  easily 
crossed  and  recrossed  by  ferries,  for  its 
broad  stream  is  neither  spanned  by 
bridges  nor  crossed  by  anything  like  an 
American  ferry  service  at  or  near  Kiu- 
kiang. 

The  party  went  their  six  li  into  the  coun- 
try, and  the  man  began  encouraging  them 
by  saying,  "Almost  at  the  place — just 
there,"  etc.  The  party  pushed  on  ten  li, 
and  the  man  kept  reassuring  them  with  re- 
marks of  the  above  nature.  Fifteen  li 
they  went,  then  twenty.  The  chair  coolies 
began  to  grow  cross.  They  slipped  In  the 
mud,  the  rain  was  falling,  and  it  was  dark; 
twenty-five  and  thirty  li  they  went,  still  the 
man  assured  them  that  they  had  almost 
reached  his  home,  then  thirty-five,  and  the 
man's  assurances  were  as  confident  as  ever, 
and  at  last,  at  the  end  of  forty  li,  through 
the  dark  night  and  over  such  paths  as  we 
should  scarcely  want  to  travel  here  in  this 
country  by  day,  they  reached  the  home  of 
helplessness. 


58  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 

The  woman  who  had  come  in  to  lend 
the  best  of  her  aid  had  infected  eyes  that 
were  running  with  pus,  and  the  house  was 
full  of  the  neighbors — full  of  men.  Dr. 
Stone  had  to  be  firm  in  demanding  that  the 
helpers'  services  should  be  at  once  dis- 
pensed with,  and  then  she  insisted  that  the 
visitors  should  withdraw,  which  they  de- 
clined to  do.  The  house  owner  was  afraid 
— they  were  his  neighbors,  and  might 
prove  ugly  afterward.  They  even  sat  up 
under  the  rafters  of  the  house.  Dr.  Stone 
washed  her  hands  preparatory  to  work, 
and  then  turned  to  the  audience  and  said 
very  firmly,  "I  have  begged  you  to  get  out, 
and  I  have  told  you  to  get  out,  and  now  if 
you  don't  get  out  (this  accompanied  by  an 
appropriate  gesture)  I  am  going  to  splash 
this  all  over  you."  This  had  a  magical 
effect,  they  almost  fell  over  one  another  in 
making  their  escape  through  the  door, 
very  likely  feeling  that  some  sort  of  spell 
would  accompany  the  process.  The  doc- 
tor then  relieved  the  situation  and  saved 
the  woman's  life,  and,  since  there  were 
none  of  the  neighbors  as  witnesses,  the 


A  Glimpse  of  the  1  leart  of  China  59 

story  spread  abroad  that  she  cut  the  wom- 
an all  to  pieces,  and  then  sewed  her  all  to- 
gether again. 

The  intrepid  Little  Doctor  and  her 
nurse  then  started  on  their  long  journey 
home.  Of  course,  the  expedition  had  oc- 
cupied much  more  time  than  had  been  an- 
ticipated, and  the  lanterns  which  were  on 
her  chair  and  that  of  her  nurse  had  been 
used  for  light  at  the  operation,  so  that 
before  they  got  back  to  the  Yang  Tze 
again  the  lanterns  went  out  and  they  were 
left  in  pitch  black  darkness.  Further  ad- 
vance was  impossible.  The  chair  coolies 
spied  nearby  a  little  hut  which  proved  to 
be  a  pig-pen,  and  they  crawled  in  and 
pulled  down  the  straw  over  them  and  slept 
with  the  pigs  all  night,  while  the  Little 
Doctor  and  her  nurse  leaned  up  against  the 
sides  of  their  chairs  and  caught  what  rest 
they  might  till  dawn,  when  they  could  pro- 
ceed on  their  journey  again. 

The  cases  which  came  to  the  dispensary 
were  sorely  in  need  of  help.  This  was,  I 
think,  the  invariable  rule.  Such  cases  they 
were  as  do  not  often  come  to  the  observ- 


6o  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 


ance  of  physicians  in  this  country,  and 
some  familiarity  with  the  dispensaries  of 
four  of  the  large  hospitals  in  New  York 
City  has  almost  failed  to  show  such  need 
as  the  Little  Doctor  sees  continually. 

One  small  boy  was  brought  whose  hands 
and  some  areas  on  his  body  were  in  a  pit- 
iable condition.  He  had  suffered  from 
some  severe  burns,  and  the  family,  in  their 
effort  to  do  the  best  thing  for  him,  had 
made  a  mixture  of  oil  and  ashes  which 
was  perfectly  black,  and  which  had  been 
liberally  smeared  over  the  body  and  hands 
so  that  the  hands  were  almost  as  black  as 
a  coal  except  where  pus  and  blood  were 
dripping  out.  It  might  be  said,  with  due 
justice  that  ashes  and  oil  are  not  nearly  so 
bad  as  some  other  modes  of  native  treat- 
ment, although  rather  bad  enough  from 
our  viewpoint.  It  was  quite  astonishing 
to  see  what  a  more  enlightened  treatment 
could  do  even  in  twenty-four  hours,  and 
the  condition  of  things  the  next  day  was 
surprisingly  good. 

One  child,  I  recall,  had  a  head  that  was 
almost  one  mass  of  sores,  not  entirely  ex- 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  6i 

cepting  the  face.  One  man,  who  called 
rather  contrary  to  the  understanding  of 
the  dispensary,  but  in  great  need,  had 
been  attacked  outside  the  city  by  some 
feline  which  he  called  a  tiger,  and  very 
possibly  it  was  a  tiger,  for  we  heard  the 
mountains  within  sight  of  the  Little  Doc- 
tor's residence  are  inhabited  by  these  ani- 
mals. He  had  some  bad  lacerations  of 
his  scalp,  due  probably  to  the  teeth  of  the 
animal.  One  of  these  long  furrows 
reached  to  the  corner  of  his  right  eye  and 
he  had  only  narrowly  escaped  having  that 
torn  out.  I  counted  twenty  claw  marks  on 
his  left  arm.  A  friend  had  come  to  his 
assistance  and  killed  the  beast,  and  then  he 
had  waited  for  nine  days  before  coming 
to  the  dispensary,  so  that  there  was  a 
very  extensive  infection  of  the  scalp 
wounds. 

In  the  Dispensary  waiting-room,  which 
serves  as  a  chapel  for  the  morning  serv- 
ice, the  waiting  crowd  is  addressed  or  per- 
haps usually  talked  with  more  familiarly 
by  one  or  more  of  the  four  Bible  women 
who  are  in  constant  attendance  on  the  work 


62    A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 

of  the  hospital.  One  of  these  is  the  Lit- 
tle Doctor's  earnest  and  enthusiastic 
mother  whose  story  of  rightful  ambition 
to  learn  to  read  Chinese,  although  a 
grown  woman  at  the  time  of  her  begin- 
ning the  work,  has  appeared  in  print  be- 
fore, and  perhaps  needs  no  repetition 
here,  but  her  ambition  now  and  daily  ef- 
fort is  to  learn  English  in  order  to  help 
her  grandson,  Luther,  and  the  other 
"brothers"  whom  Dr.  Stone  has  as  her 
children  in  her  home. 

The  nurses,  too,  are  strongly  evangelis- 
tic in  their  thought  and  effort,  and  even 
to  one  who  could  not  understand  the  lan- 
guage the  atmosphere  of  Christian  har- 
mony and  the  remarkable  lack  of  friction 
in  a  place  so  busy  and  so  continuously  full 
of  problems  was  very  noticeable.  One 
could  see  the  patients  brighten  as  the  Doc- 
tor went  her  rounds,  and  somewhat  the 
same  temper  characterizes  the  lives  of  her 
20  nurses  who  rejoice  exceedingly  over  pa- 
tients who  become  Christians  in  the  hos- 
pital, and  who  take  an  active  part  in  the 
chapel  service.    These  20  nurses  have 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  63 

been  trained  by  the  Doctor  herself,  and 
one  small  room  off  the  dispensary  treat- 
ment room  has  a  bench  in  it  where  some 
of  them  gather  when  the  Doctor  has  a  few 
moments  that  are  less  crowded  than  the 
few  moments  that  precede  and  follow 
them,  and  where  she  teaches  them  the  nec- 
essaries of  anatomy  and  treatment. 

Her  sister-in-law,  the  head  nurse,  is 
very  efficient,  and  possesses,  among  other 
things,  a  rather  peculiar  charm  of  manner 
and  winning  power  that  must  make  her  ac- 
ceptable to  everyone  of  the  other  19 
nurses.  One  can  feel,  not  only  in  contact 
with  her  one's  self,  but  in  seeing  her  rela- 
tionship with  the  others,  that  she  has  a 
temperament  which  seems  wholly  unruf- 
fled by  impatience  and  apparently  never 
at  a  loss  to  know  what  to  do. 

The   head  operating  nurse,   a  Miss 

T  ,  is  a  young  girl  of  about  twenty, 

who  is  not  only  clever  in  handing  instru- 
ments and  foreseeing  needs,  but  is  also  a 
most  devoted  helper  and  faithful  and  re- 
liable attendant  on  the  critical  cases.  Dr. 
Stone  said  that  she  gave  her  most  severe 


64  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 


cases  to  Miss  T  ,  who  seldom  failed  to 

nurse  them  back  to  health  again. 

Miss  T  's  temperament  is  buoyant 

and  also  noticeably  spiritual.  It  appears, 
that  through  no  fault  of  her  own  and 
doubtless  without  any  consent  of  her  own, 
she  was  engaged  to  a  young  man  before 
she  became  a  Christian.  When  she  was 
converted  and  had  a  new  view  of  life  she 
longed  to  have  him  see  things  as  she  did 
and  for  him  to  have  the  opportunities  for 
an  education  which  she  had.  When  one 
considers  that  Dr.  Stone  receives  $450  a 
year  as  salary  one  can  imagine  that  the 
nurses  of  her  hospital  cannot  receive  very 
much,  and  this  brave  girl  began  saving 
her  coppers  to  put  them  together  that  they 
might  spell  out  for  this  young  man  a 
chance  for  an  education.  Perhaps  few 
know  what  ambitious  self-denial  can  do, 
and  the  young  man  was  duly  installed  at 
the  William  Nast  College  with  this  con- 
tinuous brave  effort  in  the  background  to 
keep  him  there;  but  he  did  not  learn  with 
interest,  and  one  surmises  that  he  was  kept 
in  the  college  because  the  faculty  knew  of 


'clever  in  handling  instruments  and  foreseeing  needs'' 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  65 

the  struggle  which  was  going  on  in  his  be- 
half. Intemperance  had  also  a  part  in  his 
life,  I  believe.  At  last,  after  some  rather 
discouraging  months,  he  came  to  her  and 
said  that  the  food  at  the  college  was  not 
good  and  that  he  wanted  her  to  give  him 
more  money  so  that  he  might  have  some 
extras  which  most  of  the  other  young  men 
did  not  have.     At  this  juncture  some 

friends  of  Miss  T  stepped  in  and  the 

engagement  was  broken,  and,  of  course, 
we  of  the  Occident  should  remember  that 
the  affair  had  not  considered  her  assent  in 
the  first  place. 

With  the  same  devotion  Miss  T  is, 

at  present,  helping  two  of  her  brothers 
who  are  in  the  William  Nast  College.  The 
older  one  is  an  exceedingly  handsome 
young  man  with  hair  that  is  not  straight, 
as  is  most  of  the  hair  in  China,  but  is 
somewhat  wavy,  and  a  face,  which  like 
Miss  T  's  own,  has  a  power  of  light- 
ing up  in  a  way  that  is  almost  the  unmistak- 
able mark  of  the  Christlike  life  in  the 
heart.  He  and  his  younger  brother  have 
scholarships  in  the  College,  but  the  rest 


66   A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 

must  come  from  their  sister;  their  books 
and  their  clothing  and  their  spending 
money,  which  surely  cannot  be  a  large 
amount.  One  of  these  young  men,  the 
older  one,  had  been  troubled  by  a  cough 
and  weakness  for  some  time,  together  with 
some  slight  hemorrhages,  and,  upon  ex- 
amination, it  proved  that  he  was  rather  an 
advanced  case  of  pulmonary  tuberculosis. 
Some  examinations  of  the  other  young 
men  showed  that  this  condition  was  not 
uncommon  in  the  College,  and  a  following 
extract  from  one  of  the  recent  letters 
from  the  Doctor  bears  somewhat  on  the 
subject. 

It  should  be  remembered  that  while  Dr. 
Stone  does  all  that  she  can  for  the  young 
men  of  this  Christian  School  and  College 
she  cannot  by  any  means  do  all  that  she 
wants,  and  her  visitor  during  the  few  days 
of  the  stay  there  made  a  physical  examina- 
tion of  quite  a  number  of  the  young  men 
and  found  that  a  good  many  of  them 
needed  special  attention,  but  at  the  time 
when  it  was  necessary  to  come  away  there 
were  still  some  thirty  young  fellows  who 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  67 

wanted  to  he  examined  and  felt  in  need  of 
it,  and  yet  the  time  did  not  permit. 

Perhaps  it  is  the  stress  of  the  surround- 
ing heathen  world  and  the  very  different 
sentiment  which  pervades  the  neighbor- 
hood on  all  matters  that  brings  a  unity  and 
harmony  into  the  College  which,  if  one 
may  judge  on  a  rather  superficial  acquaint- 
ance, exceeds  that  which  one  finds  else- 
where. There  appears  to  be  a  great  deal 
of  good  feeling  among  the  students.  One 
scarcely  needs  to  remark  on  the  courtesy 
with  which  one  is  received,  that  is  rather 
universal  whether  in  a  Christian  Chinese 
atmosphere  or  no. 

The  girls,  who  live  in  a  separate  com- 
pound which  adjoins  that  of  the  young 
men,  come  filing  into  the  church  used  by 
both  schools  two  by  two,  and  make  their 
exit  in  the  same  way,  before  the  young 
men  are  allowed  to  go  out.  The  monthly 
Epworth  League  meeting,  which  comes  on 
a  week  day  night  and  rather  more  resem- 
bles what  we  should  call  a  "social"  meet- 
ing than  a  religious  one — although,  in- 
deed, hymns  are  sung — gives  some  little 


68   A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 

chance  for  the  young  men  and  young  girls 
to  know  one  another  at  least  by  sight.  I 
attended  one  of  these  meetings  and  was 
extremely  interested  in  hearing  the  young 
girls  sing  and  give  recitations  and  to  hear 
two  of  the  young  men  debate  before  some 
judges,  and,  in  fact,  all  the  young  men  and 
young  girls  were  judges. 

These  speeches  by  the  two  contestants 
were  greeted  with  laughter  and  applause 
and  it  sounded  very  much  like  debates  in 
this  country.  The  judges'  decision  was 
greeted  with  applause  and  evidently  satis- 
fied the  audience.  The  debate  was  for 
and  against  "The  Reality  of  Omens," 
which  was  decided  against  their  value.  It 
seemed  appropriate  that  the  young  man 
who  supported  the  more  benighted  belief 
should  have  chosen  the  Classical  Chinese 
for  his  address;  a  language  so  unfamiliar 
to  his  audience  that  many  of  them  could 
not  understand  parts  of  what  he  said  and 
he  himself  had  much  difficulty  in  remem- 
bering his  debate.  Like  the  omens  them- 
selves, this  style  of  language  Is  becoming 
less  and  less  useful  as  the  old  form  of  ex- 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  69 

aminations,  on  the  Classics  only,  is  a 
thing  of  the  past.  That  particular  kind 
of  classical  vocabulary  is  difficult  even  for 
the  Chinese  themselves,  and  the  phrases 
are  unintelligible  until  duly  explained  and 
carefully  learned.  It  is  true  that  the 
Classics  are  still  taught  in  all  schools,  even 
the  Mission  Schools,  and  form,  by  right,  a 
part  of  the  Chinese  education,  but  they 
are  taking  more  and  more  a  second  place 
in  the  light  of  more  useful  and  practical 
things. 

On  each  occasion  when  nightfall  over- 
took the  visiting  physician  on  the  college 
campus,  at  some  distance  from  the  hospi- 
tal, the  Little  Doctor,  despite  the  multi- 
tude of  other  matters  pressing,  never 
failed  to  send  over  one  of  the  faithful 
coolies  from  the  compound  with  a  lantern 
as  escort  along  the  dark  streets  toward 
the  hospital.  The  Doctor  has  what  is 
nothing  short  of  a  talent  for  detail,  as  one 
may  judge  from  the  fact  that  her  activities 
include  besides  the  care  of  the  hospital, 
with  its  six  hundred  in  patients  a  year  and 
many  skillfully  performed  operations — 


70  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 

even  to  ordering  her  own  drugs  from 
Shanghai — the  extra  burden  of  the  dispen- 
sary with  its  fourteen  to  fifteen  thousand 
annual  calls,  and  in  addition  to  conducting 
a  home  and  caring  for  four  boys — clothes, 
education,  ailments,  discipline,  and  all — 
the  responsibility  in  good  part  of  three 
schools,  one,  a  most  important  school.  The 
Knowles  Bible  Training  School,  which 
does  supply  and  is  to  supply  evangelistic 
workers.  And,  one  may  add  to  all  this,  a 
general  supervision  of  the  fine  new  build- 
ings of  the  last-named  school  which  are 
under  construction,  and  the  writing  of 
many  letters.  And  with  all  this  the  Lit- 
tle Doctor  is  the  soul  of  geniality  and 
the  well  merited  exhortation  "Quaisi, 
Quaisi!"  (Hurry,  Hurry!)  to  some  slow- 
moving  Chinese  is  said  so  kindly  or  geni- 
ally that  nobody  has  an  excuse  for  feeling 
hurt. 

It  is  doubtless  true  of  most  medical 
work  that  its  variety  lends  interest  and 
prevents  monotony  even  to  long  periods  of 
work,  but  something  more  than  just  the 
different  experiences  must  enter  into  one's 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  71 

heart  and  life  to  make  one  ready  to  take, 
as  Dr.  Stone  has  done,  years  of  consecu- 
tive work,  without  so  much  as  a  week's 
holiday,  and  no  one  who  works  with  her 
even  for  a  short  time  will  fail  to  recognize 
that  that  source  of  energy  is  hers  accord- 
ing to  the  promise:  "They  that  wait  on 
the  Lord  shall  renew  their  strength."  At 
the  time  of  Dr.  Stone's  own  illness,  some 
five  years  ago,  when  she  was  confined  to 
her  bed  with  appendicitis,  the  outlook  was 
bad  should  she  stay  in  Kiukiang,  for  the 
people  in  their  eagerness  to  be  helped  or 
to  have  their  children  helped,  could  not  be 
kept  out  of  her  own  home,  and  the  women 
would  come  in  with  their  little  sick  babies 
and  find  their  way  up  the  back  stairs  and 
into  the  sick  room  where  the  Doctor  lay, 
and  so,  on  all  accounts,  it  was  necessary 
that  there  should  be  the  operation  and  con- 
valescence somewhere  where  the  burden 
of  the  work  would  be  taken  off  her  heart. 

So  the  trip  to  America  with  its  time  of 
sickness  and  recovery  had  also  some  small 
periods  of  rest  before  the  Doctor  resumed 
her  work  in  China  again.    And  now,  the 


72  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 

work,  goes  on  with  still  more  demands 
than  before. 

One  rather  strenuous  day  stands  out  es- 
pecially in  my  mind.  We  had  operated 
most  of  the  morning,  with  dispensary 
work  thrown  in,  and  operated  for  a  long 
time  in  the  afternoon  again. 

The  afternoon  case  was  unusually  criti- 
cal, and  the  patient,  a  little  baby  in  a  dying 
condition  already,  nearly  succumbed  on 
the  table,  but  was  put  in  a  little  basket  like 
a  cradle  whose  foot  was  raised  in  order 
to  sink  the  head  and  there  it  lay  recuperat- 
ing. The  head  operating  nurse  and  most 
competent  caretaker  was  given  charge  of 
the  case,  and  it  may  be  stated  here  that, 
according  to  latest  reports,  the  child,  who 
has  been  named  Strong  Grace,  is  still 
alive.  The  father  of  the  child  tried  to 
show  his  appreciation  for  my  share  in  the 
operation  by  giving  me  the  next  day  a  cold 
boiled  sweet  potato,  and  the  mother  found 
expression  to  her  feelings  a  couple  of  days 
later  by  entering  the  operating  room 
where  we  were  preparing  for  an  operation 
and  going  down  on  her  knees  on  the  floor 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  73 

before  the  visiting  physician,  much  to  his 
embarrassment,  be  it  said,  since  explana- 
tions were  hopeless.  The  situation  was  re- 
lieved by  the  Little  Doctor,  who  explained 
to  the  woman  that  we  never  get  on  our 
knees  to  people,  but  only  to  God, 

We  went  back  to  the  house  to  dinner 
and  had  laid  down  the  responsibility  of 
the  day's  work,  and  entered  with  our  host- 
ess into  her  atmosphere  of  most  delight- 
ful sociability.  One  would  think  when 
the  day's  work  is  over  that  there  never 
had  been  anything  of  responsibility  to 
weigh  on  her  powers  of  solving  problems. 
Dinner  was  hardly  more  than  well  begun 
before  a  messenger  came  to  say  that  there 
were  some  cases  of  very  severe  sickness 
that  had  just  arrived  at  the  hospital.  We 
hurried  across  the  lawn  and  through  the 
corridor,  and  I  can  not  forget  the  sight  of 
the  reception  hall  where  these  sick  people 
and  their  friends  were  gathered  in  a 
rather  confused  group,  those  who  were 
suffering  being  too  ill  to  stand.  It  ap- 
peared that  there  were  six  cases  of  pto- 
maine poisoning.    A  river  steamer,  on  its 


74  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 


way  up  the  Yang  Tze,  had  stopped  at 
Wu  Hu,  where  some  of  the  native  pas- 
sengers had  bought  some  shell  fish  which 
they  had  eaten  and  which  had  caused  seri- 
ous illness  shortly  afterwards.  One  of 
them  died  before  the  steamer  reached  Kiu- 
kiang,  and  the  rest  were  brought  in  chairs 
to  the  hospital  door  for  help.  Two  had 
already  been  carried  up  stairs  and  laid 
upon  beds,  and  the  remaining  four  were 
helped  up  to  private  rooms,  the  Doctor  re- 
marking to  me,  with  a  touch  of  amuse- 
ment, that  whereas  her  hospital  had  been 
for  women  and  children,  it  was  turning 
into  a  "general  hospital,"  two  of  the  pa- 
tients being  men.  We  worked  for  some 
time  on  behalf  of  the  newcomers,  and 
though  one  more  case  developed  the  next 
morning  all  seven  recovered.  Four  of 
them  were  native  preachers  and  their 
wives  returning  from  Conference  at  Nan- 
king on  their  way  to  the  Nan  Ch'ang  Dis- 
trict. 

When  we  could  return  to  finish  dinner, 
it  was  quite  late  and  when  the  time  to  re- 
tire came  it  was  not  to  be  for  a  long  rest 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  75 

for  the  Doctor,  for  the  youngest  of  her 
little  charges,  Wesley  Mei,  had  rather  a 
bad  attack  of  coughing  in  the  early  morn- 
ing, starting  about  3  o'clock,  and  the  Doc- 
tor was  up  with  him  and  did  not  get  to 
sleep  again,  and  so  began  the  next  strenu- 
ous day  with  its  many  appeals  and  many 
suffering  dispensary  patients  and  its  many 
decisions  to  make. 

Apropos  of  decisions,  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  traits  of  Dr.  Stone  is  her  abil- 
ity to  make  decisions  rapidly  and  the  abil- 
ity not  to  question  them  when  made.  It 
seemed  to  me  for  some  time  that  the  secret 
of  finishing  so  much  work  in  a  day  was 
due  rather  to  this  one  fact  of  making  these 
decisions  and  then  not  reviewing  them 
afterwards,  leaving  them  behind  and  un- 
changed just  by  will  power,  but  a  little 
longer  familiarity  with  her  mode  of 
thought  suggested,  I  think,  a  truer  solu- 
tion, namely,  that  her  thought  is  so  en- 
tirely unselfish  and  guided  by  a  higher  wis- 
dom that  the  decisions  which  are  made  are 
made  correctly  and  not  arbitrarily  disposed 
of.    The  same  American  woman  of  wide 


76  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 


experience  referred  to  above  has  said  of 
the  Little  Doctor  that  she  is  the  most 
"selfless"  woman  she  ever  knew;  and  that, 
of  course,  is  quite  without  a  thought  of 
a  lack  of  personality,  for  that  is  most 
marked,  but  rather  that  she  has  the  secret 
of  unselfishness  which  is  always  to  be 
thinking  of  somebody  else. 

When  the  preachers  and  their  wives  of 
the  Nan  Ch'ang  District  were  quite  well 
again  we  were  invited  with  them  to  a  Chi- 
nese feast  served  in  true  Chinese  style  in 
the  room  that  is  fitted  with  the  native  dec- 
orations in  the  home.  It  appears  that  the 
place  of  honor  at  a  Chinese  table,  which 
is  set  without  a  cloth,  is  at  such  a  point 
that  the  grain  of  the  wood  does  not  run 
toward  one.  This  is  a  fine  point  which 
we  should  not  have  noticed  had  not  our 
attention  been  called  to  it.  The  feast 
was  served  in  bowls  at  the  centre  of  the 
table,  and  all  ate  with  chop  sticks,  the  hon- 
ored guest  being  the  first  to  help  herself 
from  the  central  bowl.  The  Magistrate's 
wife,  mentioned  more  in  detail  later,  was 
one  of  the  party,  and  this  was  indeed  a  con- 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  77 

cession  on  her  part  to  the  Christian  notion 
of  fellowship,  for,  in  China,  in  the  true 
Chiaese  style,  to  have  gentlemen  and 
ladies  dine  together  is  perfectly  impossible. 
Two  of  this  party  at  table  found  some  dif- 
ficulty in  wielding  chop  sticks  and  were 
helped  with  a  good  deal  of  courtesy  and 
without  undue  merriment  by  their  Chinese 
neighbors  at  table.  Another  of  the  guests 
was  the  District  Superintendent  of  the 
Nan  Ch'ang  District,  who  also  was  on  his 
way  back  to  his  charge  from  the  Nanking 
Conference. 

The  social  gifts  of  our  hostess  were  in- 
deed put  to  the  test  at  this  function,  and 
it  is  still  rather  incomprehensible  to  me 
how  the  Doctor  could  act  as  interpreter 
for  two  sets  of  conversations,  that  between 
my  mother  and  her  neighbor  and  between 
myself  and  my  neighbors,  and  yet  keep 
on  talking  most  affably  with  all  the  party, 
and  when  the  meal  was  over  it  was  not 
with  a  sensation  on  our  part,  that  there 
had  been  much  of  a  barrier  of  language 
between  us  and  our  friends.  The  same 
facility  of  acting  as  a  medium  of  com- 


78  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 

munlcation  was  constantly  observable,  or 
rather  almost  unobservable,  and  both  in 
speaking  in  public  and  in  the  hospital 
work  the  matter  of  the  difference  of  lan- 
guage shrunk  to  a  very  small  factor,  in- 
deed. 

One  opportunity  to  speak  to  a  Chinese 
audience  was  at  the  Rulison  High  School 
where  the  bright  and  interested  looking 
young  girls  gather  each  morning  for  their 
chapel  service.  Among  these  is  a  child 
M'ho  was  stabbed  by  her  mother-in-law  and 
thrown  out  to  die.  Before  going  out  to 
China  this  incident  had  been  reported  here 
in  this  country,  and  I  expected  to  see  at 
least  a  girl  of  15  or  1 6,  and  was  surprised 
when  a  mere  child  responded  to  Dr. 
Stone's  request  that  she  should  stay  after 
the  rest  went  out.  Another  child  who 
stayed  had  been  the  slave  of  a  woman  in 
Kiukiang,  and  had  been  so  terribly  beaten 
by  her  mistress  that  her  back  was  all  lac- 
erated. In  perfect  despair  the  child  ran 
away,  not  knowing  where  to  go,  fright- 
ened at  everything  and  afraid  of  every- 
body.   Dr  Stone  was  starting  out  in  her 


'A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  79 

chair  on  some  call  when  she  saw  the  child 
at  one  of  the  angles  of  the  street  crying 
bitterly.  She  stopped  her  chair  and  got 
out  to  investigate.  The  bystanders  hadn't 
much  to  tell,  but  Dr.  Stone  managed  to 
get  at  some  of  the  facts,  saw  that  the  child 
was  in  need  of  medical  care  and  invited 
her  to  go  back  to  the  hospital  with  her. 
The  frightened  little  girl  refused,  having 
no  confidence  in  anyone,  but  the  bystand- 
ers told  her  to  go  along  with  Shii-Ee-Sen, 
that  she  would  then  be  well  off.  So  the 
child  went  back  to  the  hospital,  and  subse- 
quently, upon  being  healed,  went  to  the 
Rulison  High  School,  her  mistress  being 
more  willing  to  forego  the  possession  of 
her  slave  than  show  her  identity  by  claim- 
ing her  again.  This  is  by  no  means  a 
unique  instance. 

One  day  a  man  brought  a  little  girl  to 
the  hospital  who  was  in  a  very  neglected 
condition,  among  other  things  her  hand 
was  infected  with  tuberculosis  so  that  one 
or  two  of  the  bones  had  to  be  removed. 
Dr.  Stone  asked  the  man  whether  the 
little  girl  was  his  slave,  to  which  he  replied 


8o  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 


that  she  was  not.  Not  long  afterward, 
and  while  the  child  was  still  in  the  hos- 
pital, a  native  woman  came  and  visited  the 
wards  and,  with  boundless  joy,  recognized 
and  claimed  in  the  child  her  own  little  girl. 
It  appeared  that  the  father  was  a  slave 
of  the  opium  habit,  and  that  one  day,  while 
the  mother  was  working,  he  had  taken  his 
own  little  girl,  and  hers,  and  sold  her  into 
slavery  to  get  money  for  more  opium.  It 
was  true  that  the  child  did  not  belong  to 
the  man  who  brought  her,  but  was  the 
slave  of  his  brother;  but  the  child  was  re- 
stored to  her  mother  again. 

When  one  thinks  of  the  unfavorable 
status  of  even  the  wives  in  the  family 
there  one  can  form  some  dim  conception 
of  what  slavery  must  be  like;  and  not 
alone  have  the  victims  of  this  system  no 
possessions,  but  they  have  not  even  the 
possession  of  a  name;  and  it  is  "Slave  girl, 
come  here!"  "Slave  girl,  do  thisl"  Only 
a  year  and  a  half  ago  some  200  women 
and  girls  were  sold  on  the  streets  of  Kiu- 
kiang  as  slaves  to  whoever  chose  to  come 
and  buy.  One  reads  in  the  chapter  in  the 


'A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  8i 


"Bonnie  Briar  Bush"  that  is  entitled,  "His 
Mother's  Sermon,"  how  the  Dominie, 
walking  in  the  garden,  treads  under  foot 
a  rose,  and  one  tries  to  fancy  what  his 
state  of  mind  must  have  been  to  make  him 
do  a  thing  like  that;  but  can  one  get  a  vi- 
sion of  what  darkness  of  heart  it  must  be 
that  can  take  a  human  life,  with  all  its 
beauty  of  possibility,  and  crush  it? 

The  light  of  the  Gospel  brings  quite  a 
different  feeling  toward  womanhood,  and 
one  of  the  little  children  in  the  Primary 
Department  of  the  School  connected  with 
the  Rulison  High  School  has  an  interest- 
ing story,  even  though  her  life  has  ex- 
tended over  but  a  few  years  thus  far.  A 
letter  carrier,  who  was  a  Christian,  found 
a  little  baby  girl  in  the  road  who  had  been 
abandoned  to  die.  It  did  not  seem  to  his 
awakened  conscience  at  all  the  right  thing, 
so  he  picked  up  the  little  bundle  and  cast 
about  in  his  mind  what  might  be  done. 
From  his  slender  resources  he  could  not 
save  enough  to  hire  a  woman  to  take  care 
of  the  child,  so  when  he  came  by  boat  to 
Kiukiang  he  consulted  with  a  clerk  in  the 


82  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 

post  office  there  who  also  was  a  Christian, 
and  they  decided  that  they  would  unite  in 
saving  sufficient  to  pay  for  the  little  girl's 
care.  The  Little  Doctor  heard  of  the 
child  and  took  her  under  her  own  protec- 
tion, placing  her  as  soon  as  she  was  old 
enough  in  this  school,  and  now  the  child 
is  supported  by  a  lady  in  this  country  and 
has  the  name  of  Abbie  Knowles.  One 
cannot  help  being  glad  when  looking  at 
that  exceptionally  sweet-faced  girl  with  her 
dark  eyes  that  Abbie  Knowles  should  have 
been  found  by  someone  whose  heart  the 
Lord  had  touched. 

One  of  the  patients  at  the  hospital  was 
a  little  boy  suffering  from  pulmonary  tu- 
berculosis. He  was  the  son  of  a  man  of 
some  rank  in  Kiuklang,  and  both  his 
mother,  one  of  the  guests  of  the  Chinese 
feast,  and  his  nurse  lived  In  the  hospital 
in  order  to  watch  over  him.  It  was  really 
touching  to  see  the  solicitude  of  both  of 
them.  His  little  sister,  too,  was  one  of 
the  hospital  inmates,  although  not  in  the 
least  ill,  and  such  a  bright  little  mite  of 
humanity  as  she  was,  scarcely  over  a  year 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  83 

old,  but  noticing  strangers,  and,  quite  to 
our  surprise,  attracted  by  the  looks  of 
foreigners,  and  a  number  of  times  I  have 
looked  down  to  see  this  little  child  in  the 
attitude  of  a  Chinese  woman's  salutation, 
waiting  to  be  noticed.  The  little  boy  had 
three  white  rabbits  with  him  that  lived  in 
a  box  in  his  room  and  ate  uncooked  rice, 
or  accompanied  him  to  a  lawn  where  he 
was  wheeled  up  and  down  in  a  little  roll- 
ing chair  by  his  nurse.  His  father  seemed 
to  be  a  most  pleasant  and  most  responsive 
man. 

News  has  come  from  Kiukiang  that  the 
child  went  back  to  his  home  improved,  but 
more  important  than  that  was  the  fact  that 
his  mother,  not  only  experienced  the 
breaking  down  of  Chinese  prejudices  but 
entered  into  the  further  experience,  the 
consummation  of  all  life  in  a  true  conver- 
sion; and  when  one  considers  the  position 
which  she  held  and  the  separation  which 
the  official  class  feel  exists  between  them 
and  others  it  is  nothing  short  of  a  miracle 
that  she  should  have  thrown  away  her 
idols  and  her  ancestral  tablets,  too,  the 


84  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 


greatest  treasures  of  which  a  household 
can  boast,  and  said  to  the  Doctor,  "I  have 
just  fallen  in  love  with  your  Jesus." 

Many  conversions  have  resulted  from 
the  faithful  work  and  the  prayers  of  that 
devoted  band  of  Christians.  One  woman 
who  went  home  a  Christian  from  a  long 
stay  in  attendance  upon  her  little  son  in 
the  hospital  returned  later  bringing  her 
son,  and  together  they  went  through  the 
hall  and  up  the  stairs  into  the  ward  and 
to  the  very  bed  upon  which  he  had  lain 
sick  so  long,  and  there  they  knelt  together 
to  thank  God  for  his  recovery. 

The  ten  days  at  Kiukiang  seemed  both 
long  and  short;  long  because  of  the  va- 
riety of  experiences  and  short  because  of 
all  the  interest  and  the  pleasure  of  the 
visit. 

The  last  morning  came  much  too  soon, 
and  with  it  one  final  operation  on  a  very 
nice  looking  young  fellow  who  had  a 
growth  of  12  years'  development  in  his 
nose.  This  caused  him  no  little  trouble; 
it  protruded  at  the  nostril  and  bled  every 
time  his  nose  was  touched.  Naturally,  the 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  85 


removal  was  a  sanguinary  affair,  but  one 
who  saw  it  could  not  forget  the  instant 
thankfulness  and  appreciation  of  the  pa- 
tient when  the  growth  was  removed,  for, 
quite  regardless  of  his  long  blue  gown 
which  was  being  drenched  with  blood,  he 
got  off  his  chair  and  went  right  down  on 
his  knees  before  Dr.  Stone  to  tell  his 
thankfulness  to  her. 

Two  of  the  young  men  of  the  William 
Nast  College  were  waiting  for  a  physical 
examination  below  stairs,  but  news  came 
that  the  boat  was  in,  and  that  meant  that, 
with  some  very  hasty  farewells  to  the 
group  of  Christians  there,  we  had  to  take 
our  leave  and  start  for  the  Bund.  What  a 
different  progress  was  our  journey  down 
from  the  journey  up,  porters  there  were 
to  take  our  trunks,  but  the  matter  was 
made  more  easy  for  mother  by  a  chair,  and 
the  Doctor  and  her  youngest  were  also 
in  a  little  green  chair,  the  sparkling  eyes 
of  the  latter  looking  out  with  the  sense 
of  perfect  joy  and  serenity  and  safety  as 
he  sat  ensconced  inside.  Somehow,  the 
streets  looked  different,  and  the  grace  of 


86  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 


our  hostess  had  spread  itself  with  some- 
thing of  charm  even  over  the  unsightliness 
of  much  of  it.  It  was  different;  it  seemed 
more  like  a  friendly  spot. 

The  somewhat  irregular  procession 
was  escorted  by  some  eight  boys,  includ- 
ing the  three  other  "brothers"  who  strag- 
gled along,  now  in  front  and  now  behind, 
with  something  of  a  holiday  air  about 
them.  Arrived  at  the  Bund  we  went  on 
board  to  secure  our  accommodations,  and 
the  time  came  for  saying  good-bye  to  the 
friend  who  had  helped  to  open  our  eyes  to 
catch  a  glimpse  of  the  heart  of  China,  as 
well  as  to  catch  something  of  a  clearer 
vision  of  the  Lord's  love.  She  could  not 
wait,  very  well,  with  that  stress  of  work, 
until  the  boat  started,  and  so,  with  her  es- 
cort of  small  boys  and  Wesley,  her  young- 
est, sitting  inside,  the  little  green  chair 
started  on  its  way  back  to  the  hospital  and 
to  some  of  the  needs  of  that  teeming  city. 
I  watched  it  as  it  threaded  its  way  among 
the  crowd  of  venders  and  porters,  now  it 
was  lost  to  sight  through  the  Concession 
Gate,  and  now  it  came  into  view  again, 


A  door  of  hope 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  87 


but  farther  away,  and  at  last  It  disap- 
peared among  the  blue  clad  throng  along 
the  Bund,  and  I  turned  away  with 
the  profoundest  admiration  and  a  prayer 
for  His  blessing  on  that  brave  heart  go- 
ing back  to  face  all  that  work  for  His 
lambs  and  His  sheep. 


Some  extracts  from  letters  recently  re- 
ceived give  still  a  further  picture  of  Chris- 
tian activity  at  Kiukiang.  They  are  ap- 
pended. 

Nov.  22,  1910. 
What  are  we  going  to  do  with  these 
tubercular  boys  and  girls?  Quite  a  few 
more  boys  came  after  you  went  away,  and 
it  is  pathetic  to  find  some  of  the  most 
promising  ones  in  school  are  afflicted  with 
it.  Mr.  Rowe  and  Mrs.  Walley  have 
given  them  a  large  airy  room  now  by 
themselves.  They  will  have  fewer  studies 
and  better  food,  milk  and  eggs  in  addition, 
besides  tonics — cod  liver  oil,   iron  and 

Fowler's  solution.  I  found  Miss  T  's 

brother  had  not  enough  bedding;  just  one 
thin  quilt  for  both  mattress  and  cover. 
The  poor  boy  said  he  could  never  get 
warm  at  night,  and  then  towards  morning 
he  would  be  drenched  in  sweat  and  his 
88 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  89 


thin  underwear  would  be  cold  on  him. 
Last  week  I  had  some  new  cotton  bed- 
ding, both  for  the  upper  and  lower,  and 
then  had  cotton  flannel  underwear  made 
for  him. 

*  *  * 

The  man  you  operated  upon  that  morn- 
ing did  not  bleed  much.  They  did  send 
for  me  in  a  way  that  was  not  comfortable 
to  say  the  least.  The  mother  came  knock- 
ing her  head  on  the  ground,  saying  that 
her  son  was  bleeding  to  death.  When  I 
got  to  his  home  I  found  that  a  big  clot 
was  trying  to  dislodge  itself.  After  that 
was  extracted  there  was  not  a  drop  of 
blood.  He  is  up  and  had  been  here  for  a 
tonic  some  days  ago.  By  the  way,  he  told 
me  that  he  will  never  worship  idols  any 
more,  and  shall  come  to  our  church  to  wor- 
ship God.  Anyway  it  will  be  a  blessing  if 
he  hears  the  Word  regularly. 

*  *  * 

The  child's  mother  is  a  bright  woman, 
and  she  is  having  the  time  of  her  life  in 


90  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 

the  hospital.  She  told  me  the  other  day 
that  she  has  learned  for  the  first  time  in 
her  life  that  idols  are  no  good.  She 
drinks  in  every  word  that  we  tell  her  of 
Jesus. 

*    *  * 

One  sad  case  yet  to  report.  The  big 
school  boy  that  you  massaged  in  the  Isola- 
tion ward  took,  his  departure  for  his  heav- 
enly home  a  week  ago  last  Thursday.  His 
wife  was  here  just  a  week  before  he  left. 
During  that  time  he  talked  to  her  about 
nothing  except  that  he  wanted  her  to  stay 
with  us  either  in  the  hospital  or  in  the 
Bible  Training  School. 

Did  you  notice  the  big  swelling  he  had 
on  his  left  hip  when  you  massaged  him? 
I  had  to  lance  him  and  such  a  quantity  of 
pus  as  came  out.  Together  with  his  bad 
lungs  his  strength  gave  out  and  he  slept 
quietly  away.  He  succeeded  his  older 
brother,  who  died  of  tuberculosis,  in  seven 
months.  It  is  something  terrible  the  way 
the  heathen  people  wail  for  their  dead, 
and  it  Is  worse  the  way  friends  try  to  com- 
fort each  other.   Here  is  a  sample.  The 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  91 

wife's  cousin  was  here  and  what  do  you 
suppose  she  said  to  the  wailing  woman? 
She  said:  "Don't  cry,  what  can  you  do, 
he  only  earned  a  short  life  from  his 
former  existence.  You  just  have  to  sub- 
mit to  your  fate  of  pains  and  sufferings. 
You  poor  woman,  you  haven't  a  son 
even!"  Such  a  Job's  comforter!  We 
hushed  her  up,  and  I  am  thankful  to  say 
that  the  Christian  widows  were  used  to 
bring  her  real  sympathy  and  hope  for  the 
future,  Mrs.  Yea  said,  "I  am  so  young, 
(only  23  years  old)  what  is  before  me, 
it  is  so  dark,  and  I  want  to  commit  sui- 
cide." Mrs.  Mei  said,  "Look  at  me,  I  am 
a  young  widow,  too,  but  I  am  happy  in  the 
Lord's  work,  and  you  just  come  and  see 
what  a  lot  of  young  widows  we  have  here 
that  are  happy  in  Jesus."  Mrs.  Yea  said, 
"But  I  have  only  had  him  for  three 
months."  Mrs.  Mei  said,  "We  have  here 
a  bright  young  worker  who  was  married 
only  one  week  before  her  husband  died 
and  another  was  left  a  widow  at  nineteen. 
We  would  have  been  desolate  indeed  if 
we  had  not  found  Jesus.  You  just  try  and 


92  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 

see  what  he  has  in  store  for  you."  Do 
you  know,  Mrs.  Yea  was  comforted,  and 
she  has  decided  to  cast  her  lot  among  the 
Christians!  This  may  mean  her  bringing 
her  sad  young  sister-in-law  to  school  later. 
Mrs.  Yea  is  very  bright  and  seems  so  will- 
ing to  learn,  and  the  Lord  may  have  a 
great  future  for  her. 

To-day,  Nov.  23,  we  had  our  Thanks- 
giving Day  because  Mrs.  Rowe  wanted  all 
the  Missionaries  together  for  to-morrow 
so  we  had  ours  a  day  earlier.  Last  year 
we  held  it  at  the  Training  School,  so  this 
year  we  had  it  here.  We  issued  100  tick- 
ets in  all — 50  for  the  old  homeless  women 
and  fifty  for  the  children  that  begged  on 
the  streets.  We  divided  the  whole  school 
into  committees  so  that  everyone  had 
something  to  do.  Four  hundred  people 
sat  in  our  yard  and  heard  the  Gospel  mes- 
sage. These  all  had  light  refreshments. 
Instead  of  feeding  the  100,  as  we  planned 
for,  120  crowded  at  the  twelve  tables,  and 
after  these  got  through  there  was  enough 
left  for  twenty  more.   So  140  of  the  very 


'A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  93 

poor  in  the  city  had  been  fed.  It  was  real 
touching  the  way  some  beggars  listened  to 
the  women.  They  were  in  dead  earnest 
as  I  saw  them  wiping  tears  away.  They 
said,  "Only  Jesus's  religion  make  people 
think  of  the  poor."  When  they  went  away 
they  said,  "Jesus  will  bless  you  for  this." 
The  reason  I  am  telling  you  this  is  be- 
cause I  found  Mrs.  Yea  already  in  smiles. 
She  forgot  her  sorrows  in  helping  us  give 
happiness  to  those  poor  suffering  people. 
You  will  be  interested  to  know,  too,  that 
all  the  women,  nurses  and  servants,  even 
our  little  children,  too,  subscribed  towards 
the  expense. 

*    *  * 

Kiukiang,  Jan.  10,  191 1. 
We  have  had  a  wonderful  series  of  re- 
vival meetings.  Mr.  Ding  of  Shantung 
was  the  evangelist.  At  the  close  of  the 
meeting  56  boys  from  the  college,  59  girls 
from  the  high  school,  not  counting  the 
men  in  the  Theological  School  or  the  wom- 
en from  the  Bible  Training  School,  vol- 
unteered to  devote  their  lives  to  evangelis- 


94  A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China 

tic  work.  Mr.  Ding  Is  a  fine  student  of 
the  Bible.  Perhaps  you  will  be  interested 
in  his  report  of  the  last  nine  months  of 
work.  He  worked  in  i6  churches,  visited 
35  schools,  secured  as  future  evangelistic 
workers  344  men  and  344  women.  One 
thousand  persons  have  joined  the  church 
on  probation.  The  Lord  has  certainly 
blessed  his  efforts  in  our  midst. 

So  many  things  have  happened  since 
you  left  us.  On  the  night  of  Dec.  ist  the 
beautiful  Baldwin  Memorial  High  School 
at  Nan  Ch'ang  was  burned  down  by  fire. 
Miss  Honsinger  had  a  new  fire-place,  evi- 
dently not  properly  built,  in  her  study.  It 
is  supposed  that  the  joist  supporting  the 
stone  that  held  the  burning  coal  caught 
fire.  Everything  was  lost.  Miss  Hon- 
singer dashed  out  in  her  night  gown,  and 
Miss  Tang  a  minute  later  had  to  escape 
by  means  of  a  rope  from  the  third  story. 
Fortunately  no  life  was  lost.  Miss  Muir 
was  away  itinerating  on  the  district  which 
was  also  a  fortunate  thing  for  her.  Miss 
Honsinger  sails  for  America  to-day  on  the 
"Siberia"  with  Miss  Merrill  and  Miss 


'A  Glimpse  of  the  Heart  of  China  95 

Nieh  (the  high  school  teacher  that  you 
met  here) . 

*    *  * 

By  the  way,  the  young  woman  that  had 
hysteria  while  you  were  here  has  not  been 
allowed  to  return  to  school  yet.  A  neigh- 
bor of  hers  tells  me  that  she  remains  true 
to  Jesus,  and  in  spite  of  persecutions  at 
home,  beatings  from  her  husband  and 
mother-in-law  at  times,  she  steadily  re- 
fuses to  join  in  the  idol  worship.  My  sis- 
ter-in-law is  going  to  see  her  again  before 
Chinese  New  Year  when  her  faith  will  be 
put  strongly  to  the  test  and  she  will  be  in 
great  need  of  prayers. 


DATE  DUE 

85 

Mitt 

OAYLORO 

PRINTED  IN  U.S.  A 

